Blood Oaths
by Amethyst Hunter
Summary: When Akabane loses his primary weapon, Himiko tries to protect him from all the glory-seekers wanting their whack at a declawed Jackal. In his weakest hour, will Akabane learn to trust in a power greater than his own?
1. Bloody Jackal

Title: Blood Oaths

Author: Amethyst Hunter

Fandom/Pairing: Get Backers, Akabane/Himiko

Rating: R (violence, language, blood, all the happy fun things)

Warnings/Spoilers: See above. Minor spoilers for canonical events like the Voodoo Child arc.

Notes: I live! Still writing, just at a slower pace since things are shifting around in my life a lot lately. :) This is sort of an AU that uses elements from the manga/anime canon, except I skewer it off into my own alterna-verse timeline.

Disclaimer: I don't own GB or any of its glorious characters. Much like Akabane, I fic solely for my own enjoyment. Except I don't kill anybody. Well, only in print, that is. ;)

Summary: When Akabane loses his primary weapon, Himiko tries to protect him from all the glory-seekers wanting their whack at a declawed Jackal. In his weakest hour, will Akabane learn to trust in a power greater than his own?

XXXXX

Was he dying?

Probably. There was an awful lot of blood. The only reason he'd made it as far as he had was simple stubborn nature. He refused to drop, wouldn't give the bastard that satisfaction. Though it had been an interesting fight...at least, up until the end...

Drip. Drip. Don't mind the spatters. Keep moving. He might be badly wounded, but moving prey was still fighting prey, and therefore harder to bring down. So. One foot ahead of the other. Breathe. Carefully.

It hurt. A lot. But still. Breathe.

World tilting; colors fading in and out of his vision. Don't close eyes. Don't. Sleep was the little death, sister to the bigger void. He'd always known that his eventual destiny was the grave, but he'd be damned if he'd grant that trophy to a mere observer. The legacy of Doctor Jackal was not one to be coldly preserved in diamond. It would have been better forged in thunder and current, or set ablaze with serpent's venom.

Watch the steps. Tired. So tired. Not yet, no, don't lie down. All right, just...wait, for a moment. Coughing fit. Damned dust. Pain. Ignore it. Pain was a familiar friend. Pain was good, meant he was still alive. Get up, now, get going.

Get up.

...get up.

...get up _now,_ damn you...!

But even as his mind gave the order, his body's will was stronger, and as his eyes shut for the last time a part of Kuroudo Akabane was rather vexed by the realization that he wasn't even bleeding to death where he had most wanted to go, in the middle of a glorious battle.

XXXXX

Himiko Kudou had learned in time to mentally blot out the eternal shadow of the building complex that stretched endlessly overhead, but she still felt as though the malevolence of the place was always watching her every time she had to venture near it. In a way this was to be expected - she was last in a cursed lineage, fated to struggle against a destiny that would have obliterated her in place of another. She'd bested that enemy, not without great cost, but she was always aware of the fact that another door could just as easily be opened when one was closed.

No one ever underestimated Babylon City. Not if they wanted to stay healthy. Anymore Himiko slept with a night light on and a bottle of flame perfume beneath her pillow.

This gray day found her running errands downtown. Markets were several of the places where she obtained some of the ingredients necessary for her poison perfumes, so she had made purchases. Now she was on her way back to the small warehouse loft she called home.

Something near one of the outer abandoned buildings caught her eye. A pattern. Her brother, Yamato, and later, Ban, had taught her how to analyze patterns, look for the clues. As a transporter she needed to pay attention to detail. Detail was what saved one's neck in the breathtaking seconds of a battle, particularly when one was also a sorceress hunted by others. It had not escaped her notice that the streaks painting the ground were red. Dark red.

Himiko's fingers tightened around the handlebars of her motorcycle. For a split second she debated just driving past the blood trail. Her reticence would have been understandable. Few outsiders wanted to get involved in any of Mugenjou's troubles. But spending time around the Get Backers - her chief rivals, as retrievers - and her own personal sense of honor held stronger sway over her choices. She turned the bike toward the spatters, fishing out a bottle of flame perfume in one hand to be prepared for anything that might prove dangerous.

She didn't have much further to go. The trail abruptly disappeared into an alley. Himiko drove her bike into it, slower now so she could scan her surroundings. Then she saw the unmistakable shape of a body ahead. The blood trail ended here.

Himiko didn't immediately rush to see what had become of the injured. From past experience, she knew that illusions could be carefully crafted to lead the wary right into a trap, and she was close enough to the great fortress that its manipulations could just as well affect pockets around it as they did the inner sanctums. Somewhere in that massive stronghold lived an observer who had a keen eye on her. She did not return the sentiment.

She parked the bike a distance from the body and approached on foot, at a cautious pace, with her perfume uncapped and ready. This close to the labyrinth there were barely any people; no one outside of it wanted to be caught venturing too near, and no one inside it - save for the malevolent City overhead - had much interest for the outer boundaries, though the threat of mugging was constant. Still, she was careful. Traps could be anywhere, and it was too easy to spring one without realizing the danger.

When she was close enough to the form Himiko's dread spiked. She knew that black coat, that long, thin shape and the dark mane that topped it. She also knew that for him to be downed in the outcome of a battle meant grave danger indeed.

She knelt beside him and carefully touched his shoulder. "Jackal?"

He didn't answer. For a moment she wondered if he was even still alive, then she saw the labored movement of his chest and heard the heavy breathing. Had he taken a direct hit? "Jackal?" She put her perfume back in its harness and grasped Akabane's shoulders, trying to turn him over, and when she saw the extent of the damage a low cry escaped her.

He was bleeding badly, the front of his coat soggy with blood. It was matted in his hair, dripping from his lips, and his gloves were more red than white. His eyes were shut and he didn't seem to know she was there; all his remaining energy was concentrated on drawing raspy, gurgling breaths.

"Oh God. Jackal? Akabane?" Himiko patted his face a few times trying to get him to look at her. His eyelids fluttered partially open but his gaze was foggy at best, as he looked past her into some unfathomable void awaiting its claim on him, the same void to which, no doubt, his victims likewise entered upon passing beneath his unforgiving scythe.

"Akabane! It's me, Lady Poison! Himiko!" She slapped his face harder, without much success. His eyes struggled open again and then rolled back in his head, which sagged against her shoulder as she supported his upper body.

Himiko fumbled in her harness for the antidote scent. It couldn't heal his wounds, but it might buy him some time. Its formula was designed to cancel out the harmful effects of an attack; she had no idea what had been powerful enough to take Akabane down and didn't think that her skill would fare much better, but she had to try. She uncorked the bottle and held it under his nose, willing him to draw in the salts.

"Akabane, we need to go. Can you move at all?" The antidote must have done some good, for his legs slowly began to twitch, as though he were trying to get up. Himiko put the perfume away. She managed to get one arm of his over her shoulders; ignoring the stench of fresh blood - and the sticky-smooth feel of it against her fingers - she braced her footing as she put her arms around his waist and crouched to help him stand.

She was strong and on a good day could make even Ban wince from a punch, and Akabane was probably no heavier than he was. Even so, Himiko found that the dead weight from her sometime cohort leaning so far over on her was difficult to bear, despite his thin build. Their trek toward the bike was slower than she would have preferred. Several times she had to stop and grab Akabane and hold him in place to keep him from toppling over. He swayed like a newborn fawn struggling out its first few steps, except that if he went down a second time there would be no more rising. Himiko was determined that neither of them would fall here, in these shadows.

They made it to the bike. Himiko had to lean Akabane against the sidecar while she contemplated how to get him in it. As she was thinking a wheeze of air grew louder before she realized that he was trying to speak. Himiko leaned closer to hear him.

"...hat..."

She wanted to say forget it, they were in enough trouble as it was without going back for the stupid thing. But she ran back into the alley and grabbed the big black covering anyway. Akabane always had been particular about his favorite adornment and somehow it seemed wrong to deprive him of its presence, as though it were a familiar piece of armor that if restored to its rightful crown would assure his continued existence. An existence that currently was very much in doubt, if the blood seeping down the front of his coat was any indication.

When Himiko returned to the bike she found that he'd gotten himself into the sidecar, albeit with great difficulty. Blood was smeared liberally, marking the spots where he'd half-fallen-half-rolled and folded his lanky form into the passenger seat. She stuffed the hat into the sidecar's trunk compartment after making sure its owner wasn't about to bounce out of his seat at the first jarring rut she ran over. Himiko wiped her bloody hands on her vest - she could worry about laundry later - and jumped on the bike, gunning the engine.

Instinct told her that a hospital would do no good here. Whatever had affected Akabane so terribly was not necessarily of this world. He was powerful enough that very few beings could do any real damage to him - which of course was his entire focus in life. He was always seeking that next challenge, always eager to press his limits beyond their known capabilities that he might achieve an even greater level of skill. Had he finally tangled with something powerful enough to crush even him?

The possibility chilled Himiko, and she brushed it away, not wanting to dwell on the implications. She had seen Jackal's power, worked with him for several years. If he would be felled, Akabane would inflict plenty of savagery before the deathstrike. Whatever - whoever - had done this to him was deadly opposition indeed.

She doubted it was Ban - one of only two people she knew who could ever say that they had done battle with the lethal Jackal and lived to tell of it. Ban was powerful and had no qualms about inflicting his own bloodbath, but he didn't do it on a whim and certainly not if it could be avoided. But she didn't think it was Ginji - or, more accurately, his merciless counterpart - either. Raitei's presence was always visible in some way or another, and at no time had she smelled a thickening of ozone or felt a pressure from the skies.

Who, then?

Himiko pushed the question to the back of her mind and concentrated on the fastest route to her apartment. With Akabane leaning against her so much steering was trickier, as her own weight was thrown off balance by his taller stature. She had to put an arm around him and support his upper body the best that she could, while keeping the motorcycle under control. This meant she couldn't push the engine to the speed she would have preferred, but she made do, burning the gas wide open when she could in less crowded streets.

Akabane was in no position to comment, favorably or not, on her erratic driving. His head was slumped beneath her arm, his eyes closed while the wind whipped his bloodied hair about. Himiko kept checking the pulse under his jaw; it was distressingly weak. "Hold on, Jackal, just stay with me," she muttered, more a prayer than an admonition.

The route she'd picked to her place was not very long, but it felt as though it took forever to get there. A too-brief sensation of relief flooded Himiko when the building complex came within sight. They had made it, but would her erstwhile partner survive?

He was still breathing - ragged, raspy sounds - but he was alive. Himiko pulled the bike to a stop around the back side and eyed the staircase leading to the second floor, where her loft was. Shit. Well, there was no help for it. She wasn't about to break down now.

"Come on, Akabane. One - " she gritted her teeth as she got off the bike, went around to the sidecar and prepared to help him up - "damn - " she wrapped her arms around him, easing his upper body over her shoulder while securing one arm around his waist and pulling him up out of the sidecar - "bloody - " she rolled his hips up and over the edge of the sidecar's front end, dragging his legs behind - "step - " now she was balancing his feet on the ground, rolling with him in an awkward attempt to stand him back up again - "at a time!"

The stairs weren't as bad as she'd thought. Deciding that Akabane wouldn't much care at this point Himiko maneuvered him to sit on one of the bottom steps and leaned him back against them. She stepped above him and hooked her hands under his armpits, grunting quietly as step by step she dragged him upstairs, making a mental note to wash away the bloodstains in their wake as soon as she could.

She leaned Akabane against the wall once they'd gotten to the upper floor. He looked worse than she'd thought. A gurgle in his throat, and he coughed, a wet, disgusting noise that yielded more blood down the front of his chin.

"Don't say anything! Save your strength." Himiko fumbled in her harness for the keys. She unlocked her door and hauled him inside, laying him on the floor in the foyer. She ran past him into the kitchen, going through the dishes in the sink and throwing aside loose cups and pots for a bowl, which she filled with water. This she took back outside and tossed over the stairs, rinsing away the worst of the bloodstains left behind. A more thorough scrubbing would have to wait, but for now she wouldn't have to worry about anyone spotting their trail from a distance.

She came back inside and set the bowl on a counter, then turned to attend to Akabane. He was gone.

Himiko forced herself to take a deep breath, hold it, and exhale. Now. She looked at the floor and saw the blood trail. She stumbled after it, calling out his name.

The sight that greeted her in the bathroom twisted her gut in a knot. Somehow Akabane had managed to shed his coat and was crawling towards the bathtub. He was covered in so much blood that at first she thought he was actually wearing a red shirt instead of a white one. He reached the tub, hooked his bloodied hands over the side of it - she noticed he'd ripped off his gloves, too - and heaved his upper body over, torso shuddering from the effort.

"Jackal - " She ran to help him.

He snarled something unintelligible and swiped at her with claws; Himiko dodged the blow and stared as the scalpels melted into a puddle of blood that pushed itself from his palm in a gooey blob and landed on the tiled floor with a wet smack. Again she stooped to help; again Akabane rebuffed her. "Leave...me!"

She ignored him and grabbed his arm when he would have shoved her away. "Jackal - Akabane - what happened!"

He couldn't, or wouldn't, answer her, for the next moment had him coughing and hacking in great hoarse fits. He threw himself over the edge of the tub again and was consumed by wracking spasms as he vomited up a thick mass of blood. Himiko watched in horror as more blood followed that, and then red-flecked spittle as he dribbled out the last of it and lay, wheezing, shaking, over the side of the tub.

She knelt beside him and carefully brushed back his hair, gasping when he slowly turned his face up at her. It was painted in blood. Rivers of it oozed from his nose and streaked from his eyes, poured from his lips. It was seeping from his ears and scalp - that was why his hair felt so sticky. It even dappled his exposed skin in tiny drops of ruby as the pores sought to expel it.

"Akabane," Himiko whispered. "What happened to you?"

His eyes, their lashes matted by the blood clinging to them, slipped shut as he slumped against the tub. "Go," he rasped quietly between pants for breath.

"Tell me what to do. What I can do. Let me be your strength right now."

"Need...ride it...out." He hacked and spat up another splotch of red. "Nothing else...have to - have...to wait..."

It proved to be too long and frightening a wait. Himiko spent the next several hours watching in stomach-twisting distress while Akabane heaved up, choked on and spat out alarming amounts of blood, at ever-increasing frequencies. At one point he lay bent nearly all the way upside down into the tub, his hips cantered against the edge with his head touching the bottom inside. Himiko sat straddling the tub side and held his shoulders up, supporting him so that he wouldn't drown in the flood of ruby pouring from his extremities. She finally decided that it would just be easier to get him all the way into the tub and turn on the shower stream to wash away the revolting mess. How she kept from vomiting herself - the stink of hot copper hung in her nostrils and stung on her lips and tongue - she didn't know and didn't care to think on, lest the very idea trigger an overwhelming wave of nausea she knew she'd be unable to hold back.

Akabane lay huddled on the floor of the tub, curled into a fetal position. He had finally ceased throwing up blood but streams of it were still seeping from parts of his skin, ebbing and flowing as the spray from the shower rinsed them away. Himiko noticed the relentless shivers that coursed through his body; bit by bit she had removed pieces of his clothing when it had been soaked enough to purge all but the worst stains. He was down to his underwear - even that had been mired in blood - and she was shocked at how haggard he looked. It was as if losing that much blood had robbed him of almost as much flesh, the sharp blades of his bones stuck out so. With his wet hair plastered to his skull, in his wretched state, he looked downright skeletal.

A thin, hoarse moan issued from his lips. Himiko leaned closer to hear what he might be saying, but if there were words, she couldn't discern them above the shower's noise. It might have been simply an expression of the misery he was going through. She realized that the pelting of the water on his sensitized skin seemed to be causing him almost as much pain as the expulsion of blood itself. She cupped some of the cascading water in her hands and carefully poured it over his mouth, across his teeth, to get rid of the lingering blood there.

"Just a little bit more, okay, and then we're done," she murmured to him, having rinsed her hands of blood and now carding her fingers through his sopping hair to clean it. She reached for a bottle of shampoo on the ledge and squirted a few drops of it into her palm. While she worked her sudsy fingers through Akabane's hair she kept watch on the stream of red running down the drain. Slowly but surely the water was losing its red tint, and fading into pink, and that dissolving into perfect clear.

The shower had turned cold by then. Himiko worked as fast as she could to rinse Akabane's hair of the shampoo and then shut the faucet off. In the sudden silence the only other sound besides the dripping from the wet nozzle was his erratic panting.

Himiko grabbed two of the bigger towels dangling from the wall bar and threw them over Akabane's trembling form. His pose - arms crossed protectively over his chest, knees drawn up tightly - reminded her of Egyptian mummies preserved by the drying sands in which they had long been forgotten. Even his hair appeared dull, grayed, as if the very color had been leeched from it along with his lifeblood. She feared he wouldn't last the night.

"Hang on. I'll be right back."

She was soaking wet herself, probably leaving a trail of red from where her own clothes had absorbed blood and water, but Himiko paid this little notice as she tore through her bedroom and searched her closet. She'd kept some of her brother's clothes stored in the back, as a way of keeping his presence close to her. If memory served her right a few of Yamato's things should fit Akabane since they were of roughly similar builds. She located an old blue and green plaid flannel bathrobe and yanked it from the plastic garment bag. It would do for now. En route to the bathroom she stopped by the linen closet and took from that a folded bedsheet.

She went back to Akabane and was relieved to see he hadn't moved from his spot. He was too weak for that now and if he'd attempted it probably would have fallen and broken his neck in the deal. She kicked the stained bath rugs out of the way and unfolded the sheet across the floor in front of the tub. Then she draped the robe over the sink's counter and did her best to towel him dry, pulling off her perfume harness and shirt before she started so she wouldn't get any more goop on him. Her pants were spattered with some stains too but not nearly as many, and could wait. She shoved up a bra strap that was threatening to slide down her arm and finished toweling Akabane off.

His gasping had subsided but not his shivers. Himiko put one foot inside the tub and left one foot out, crouching while bracing herself as she prepared to help him up. "Jackal. Jackal. Come on. I've got you." It took three tries before she was able to get him to struggle to his knees, and then he wobbled on unsteady limbs, twice nearly collapsing before she could get a good hold on him to ease him over the side of the tub, one painstaking inch at a time, her fixing his hands to the floor for support while she moved him. His arms gave out before she could lift his lower body and he tumble-rolled onto the sheet-covered floor, his legs flopping like a pair of awkwardly-placed rakes tangling together. With the bulk of his weight now on the floor, Himiko had only to turn and move his legs so that he was now completely out of the tub, lying on his side.

"Almost done, Akabane, I swear." She huffed another gulp of air and grabbed the robe, spreading it over him. She maneuvered one arm through a sleeve, turned him onto his stomach, pulled the robe over him, and managed to get his other arm through the second sleeve. By now he lay limp, silent, a living rag doll that she had to wrestle and work with to finish dressing. She rolled him onto his back and tugged at the folds of robe stuck underneath him, wrapping it shut and tying the belt securely around his waist.

For a few seconds she debated whether to strip off his wet underwear or leave it be, hesitant to deprive him of the last vestiges of dignity. She decided that the risk of him catching a chill from being in wet clothing outweighed the chances of his displeasure if - no, _when_ - when he awoke and discovered the humiliating state she'd left him in. She told herself he probably wouldn't remember it anyway.

"Sorry about this. You can J me later."

She reached under the robe, felt for the sides of his hips and gripped the waistband of his underwear, dragging it down his thighs and legs to his ankles. After she'd gotten it off him she tossed it into the pile of wet clothing on the floor that was puddling in the corner. Already the water there - not all of it clear - was leaking into the edges of the bedsheet.

Himiko tucked the bottom flaps of the robe around Akabane's knees, making sure he was decently covered, and then took both far corners of the top half of the sheet and wound them around in her hands. She stood up and dragged the sheet, occupant and all, out of the bathroom and down the hall to her bedroom.

"One more and that's it. Ready?" Not expecting any answer Himiko knelt one more time to lift Akabane and help him into the bed. She rolled him over, got one arm around his torso and pulled him as best she could over her shoulder, managing to raise him up so that he was halfway supported by the mattress. She pushed-pulled-dragged his upper body onto the bed and, when she was sure he wouldn't suddenly slide off it, got the rest of him up there as well.

She leaned against the bed herself, gathering her breath for a moment. Then she straightened Akabane's body out, setting a pillow beneath his head and arranging his limbs into a more comfortable position. She pulled the covers up over him, adding on an extra blanket once she saw how pale his skin had become. She'd seen milk with more color in it than his face. He was still breathing, she could tell by the slow rise and fall of his chest, and it wasn't as labored as it had been before. But the sunken shadows beneath his eyes and the stark angles of his face spoke volumes to how much he'd endured.

Himiko felt a strange anxiety at the likelihood that he could really die. Despite having learned his origins, of spending years working side by side with him in the transporting business, she realized that a part of her had come to hold him in the same regard as everyone else, an ethereal, formidable force of nature that was as eternal as the cycling of seasons. It was, in a way, to be expected - the Babylon City history notwithstanding, Akabane's power and ever-calm presence were a peculiar consistency she'd found somehow both comforting and unnerving. The idea of Doctor Jackal succumbing to the very scythe he wielded with lethal precision seemed as foreign and untenable to her mind as had once the thought that Ban Midou might not have killed Yamato out of malice.

Maybe it was because of their associations that she'd grown to feel like he was someone important to her, a trusted advisor if not a friend. She knew precious little about him as a person and yet he remained a significant influence in her life. Not because of his role in the machinations behind the alternating universes and the plan to harness the Get Backers' separate forces towards those ends. Nor had it been because of his guidance during the time of the Voodoo Child and the threat of the false Queen. Although those experiences were no small fodder...

Perhaps it was in the way they worked together. Seldom did they need to explain their plans to one another. It was as if they operated within a secret realm where they instinctively sensed the other's intent. On the occasions they did trade words, their conversation was almost evenly matched, a spirited and elegant verbal fencing between equals attuned to one another on a plane accessible to few others. There was an...awareness, a subtle but intense communication that was surprisingly meaningful, if either of them had cared to examine this facet of their relationship more closely.

For the moment, Himiko was more concerned with the fight-or-flight impulse that had prompted these feelings of disturbance over the possibility that Akabane might not make it through his ordeal. Action was the best way she knew how to handle uncomfortable situations, so she gave herself a mental shake and got up to begin the decidedly time-consuming task of cleaning up the blood left in the wake of their chance encounter.

She would worry about the implications of her reaction later.

XXXXX

TBC


	2. Akabane awakens

Blood Oaths, ch. 2

XXXXX

Pain was a constant cousin; it had accompanied him throughout his life in various guises and he now took little notice of it except to confine it to the appropriate designation in his thoughts. Even so, there were some times when the pain was so great as to blot out everything else on his horizon until it became his entire world, resonated with each thrum of his pulse straight down to the very core of him. There was no enjoyment to be had from this kind of experience, no sweetly biting lance of death's promise. This was, simply put, plain agony.

The first thing Akabane noticed when the withdrawing shadows coaxed him back to the world of consciousness was how much it hurt to breathe. His throat, sinuses, felt like he'd ingested a tidal wave of slivers. Which was not so terribly far from the truth. As soon as he was able to he was going to give dear Kagami-kun the bloodiest thrashing of his impudent life.

It was his own stupid fault, really, and he silently cursed himself for his own lack of foresight. He'd allowed himself to be lured right into the trap, blinded by greed, and look at the price he paid. It had taken him well over a week to recover from the shattering of his sword when he and Ban Midou had fought the last time in Mugenjou; gods only knew how long it would take him to replenish the lost blood from this.

Reminded of that, a new line of thought occurred to him, and he frowned. He tried to sit up but found he had not the strength to even raise his head, such was the exhaustion wracking his body. His muscles were quick to protest when he pushed himself anyway, struggling to move an arm to raise himself partway up, only to find that not even this small movement was sustainable. He slumped back onto the bed, a strangled groan catching in his throat at the pain sparking through his body, and passed out.

Some time later he awoke again. Impulse prompted him to try to move again but Akabane squelched it, opting to study his surroundings instead. Someone...had found him. He vaguely recalled a female voice urging him to move and remembered a rather bumpy vehicle ride, but no other details came to him right away. The Samaritan must have brought him to her home. How she'd cleaned off all the blood from him must have been a miracle.

Blood. That familiar train of thought made Akabane wince again, and he concentrated on squeezing together the fingers of his right hand. Nothing. He focused harder, willing the old shift-and-click to produce the weaponry which had become his hallmark. Still, his hand remained empty.

Akabane refused to let alarm sink in. He was just tired, that was all. Understandable in light of his recent escapades. Surely he hadn't lost that much blood.

Surely.

He forced an unwelcome idea back down into the burrows of his mind. He was tired, weakened. He would try again later, and there would be knives, maybe not as sharp or as many as he was accustomed to, but they would be there, and that would be enough. For the time being. Just as long as they were there.

Akabane refused to entertain the dreadful possibility that had been lurking in his mind since first waking. Doctor Jackal could not be Doctor Jackal without the tools of his trade.

He closed his eyes and let sleep take him under. There would be time enough to ponder his predicament later.

Dreams assailed him; jumbled fragments of past and present battles that made little sense amidst pockets of reality that were even less coherent. There was Ginji-Raitei spinning a tornado of shimmering electricity around a smug Kyouji Kagami, who winked at him and blew a handful of blinding diamond dust that obscured everything as it cascaded into an enormous curtain of death. There was Lady Death Knell herself, Maria Noches, greatest of all witches save for the very Queen who had once mentored her. She danced past him in a garish outfit better suited to a Shinjuku stripper than a powerful sorceress. Only she was as she really appeared, to those granted the ability to see past the guise she assumed, an ancient gypsy woman whose burnished skin told an ageless history in its spotted folds.

Too, he thought he once imagined Himiko Kudou, his fellow transporter, spooning pieces of ice past his parched lips. Only the cold taste of welcome moisture on his tongue, soothing his raw throat, convinced him that those bits had truly happened.

Eventually the melding of reality and dreamscape dissipated into a comforting blank darkness, and Akabane slept deeply.

XXXXX

The sound of rain drizzling outside, and the gentle touch of fingertips combing strands of hair back from his forehead, stirred him. He experienced a brief moment of disorientation, thinking he was a boy back in the family house and that his mother was taking care of him. But then he noticed the cold dampness encircling his throat, and the figure coalescing into solid vision was not that of Akabane's mother. He blinked, caught a whiff of pleasant and familiar scent, and blinked again as Himiko Kudou's face shifted into view.

"Welcome back."

He blinked a few times, trying to blot out the harsh light streaming in through the window nearby as much as he was attempting to ascertain that this was for real. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing would come out except an unintelligible hoarseness.

Himiko put her fingers to his lips. "Let me do the talking. You threw up so much blood your insides are probably scraped to sushi. That's why the ice packs are there around your neck. I thought that would help a little with the pain."

That, and the ice chips she'd fed to him earlier. Akabane waited for her to continue.

"I'll tell you what I know," Himiko said, getting up to adjust the shade on the window so the afternoon light wasn't hitting him in the face. She looked confused, worried, unsure. But she didn't hold back. "A week ago I found you just outside of Mugenjou. You were really beaten up. Blood everywhere. I brought you back to my place, and you..." She stopped, collecting herself some as she took a slow breath. "There was just...blood everywhere," she repeated, her voice shaking a little. "What did Kagami do to you, Akabane?"

He started to form a reply but again she hushed him, sitting back down at the bedside. "No, I said don't talk. You're too injured right now. Yes, I know you were fighting with him," she said when she saw the twitch of his eyebrow. "After I'd finished cleaning you up - sorry about your stuff, by the way. I did what I could to get the stains out, but your whites are a total loss." She blinked and ran a hand through her hair. "Anyway. I cleaned you up, put you in bed, and when I was hosing down my bathroom afterward I found the diamond dust slivers in the tub drain."

She held up her hands so he could see her palms. They were slightly pink, and some of the skin had peeled in light flakes. "I'd wondered why my hands felt so bruised after working on you. It was the diamond dust. Abraded everything it touched."

She lowered her hands back to her lap and looked at him. "I don't think Kagami suddenly got a surge in power. You two are matched in ability. He must have gotten the drop on you to do that kind of damage." She raised a brow at him, and he blinked slowly at her to convey his confirmation of her guesswork. "Jesus. I thought you were going to die."

Akabane didn't disagree with that. He'd thought he was done for too.

Himiko shrugged. "Well. You can stay here till you recover. I've been looking after you with Maria's help. No, it's okay," she added when she saw the way he started to frown. "She doesn't know what happened. All I told her was that I had a friend who was sick and needed medicine. You were, you know. Fever. Probably infection from that damn dust ripping up your internals." She turned and indicated a bottle sitting on the nightstand next to the bed. "I had Maria whip up a potion to fix that. It's time for another dose."

She helped him to rise up slightly, stuffing another pillow behind him for support. Himiko took the bottle and opened it, pouring a dose into the spoon she held beneath it. She held the spoonful of liquid to Akabane's lips, and he obliged, letting her slip the medicine onto his tongue. He had about two seconds to register its chill - evidently it was something that needed to be refrigerated - and then another second to process the fire blazing its trail down his throat when he swallowed the stuff.

Himiko yanked the spoon back and put her hand over his mouth, preventing him from coughing up the dose and spitting it out. "No, no, just swallow it, quick! I know. I'm sorry," she said, sympathy welling in her face as she watched Akabane grimace and choke. "I know, it tastes like shit, and it probably doesn't feel so good with your throat being as raw as it is. But trust me, it works. I've had it before."

She picked up a small dish from the nightstand and used a clean spoon to transfer some more ice chips to him. Akabane slurped them down, eager to dispel the noxious taste lingering in his mouth and calm the stinging of his esophagus. Himiko was patient, feeding him ice one piece at a time, and was gracious enough not to comment on it when he took some of the ice a little too fast and gagged on it, triggering a brief rasp of painful coughing.

"Are you hungry? I can bring you some soup..."

He inclined his head to indicate that yes, sustenance would be welcome. Himiko got up and went to find some, leaving Akabane to look at his surroundings once more. The white room was furnished modestly and there were some pictures, mostly of tropical scenes, hanging on the walls, ostensibly to cover up some of the more obvious cracks in the plaster. It was a quiet sanctuary redolent in tranquility - including the subtle scents that occasionally wafted forth on the air.

He dissected the things Himiko had told him. The fight, yes, that he remembered. Beyond that his mind went fuzzy. He supposed that the aftermath had been too much to contemplate; he'd been more concerned with getting the blazes out of that godforsaken place and finding somewhere to rest and recoup his powers. Dimly he recalled lying somewhere wet and cool, and he supposed that must have been when Himiko had first brought him to her place and was rinsing off the contaminated blood - the diamond dust - that his body was struggling to rid itself of.

Akabane shut his eyes, a soft hiss of annoyance escaping him. Well this was certainly inconvenient, and disgraceful to boot. Being confined to bed rest like some helpless invalid never had sat well with him. It hadn't even been that impressive a fight. He'd been in Mugenjou on business, having just completed his delivery when Kyouji Kagami appeared to taunt him yet again. Akabane had thought nothing of chasing after the brazen City denizen in the wake of a proffered challenge, and the fact that he'd let himself fall for such easy bait irked him on several levels.

Himiko returned, bearing the promised food. Akabane was half of a mind to turn it down now and wait until he could eat it himself, but rational sense argued that recovery would go faster if he just cooperated in the short run. He'd already been seen in worse straits - his mind was perfectly content blotting out any acknowledgment of his wearing only a bathrobe and nothing else at present - and anyway, it wasn't as if the rest of the world knew what had happened. As long as he had his way, it wouldn't, either. On that count he supposed it was nice of his comrade to have come upon him when she had, and seen fit to lend assistance.

He patently ignored the thought that he would most likely be dead right now if it wasn't for Himiko. What she'd done wasn't rescuing. Doctor Jackal didn't need saving, wasn't some easy prey for the taking. This was just a run of bad luck, and would be remedied in the future when next he tracked down the Observer and made him eat every razored edge of his own bitter, bloody medicine.

Akabane resisted the urge to clench his fist and try again for knives. He let Himiko feed him the soup, which would have been better if it wasn't so lukewarm. "I know it's no good cold, but I didn't want to give you any more irritation than necessary," she explained between spoonfuls.

He had to admit that even the mild warmth was uncomfortable sliding down his roughened throat. He managed to get about half of the soup finished off before he could tolerate it no longer, and she seemed to realize this, for she drew back the bowl and went to put the leftovers away.

When she came back she checked the ice packs around his neck, and removed the ones that had softened, replacing them with fresh ones. Akabane tried not to wince as the sharper cold touched his skin, but Himiko noticed.

"Try this."

She took the new packs and wrapped each of them in a small towel before applying them again. That was better. He still felt their chill, but it wasn't quite as uncomfortable as before.

"Anything else I can do?"

He rolled his head limply on the pillows in response. Himiko nodded and gave his bed a cursory glance, just to be sure everything was in place. "Okay. I have to go now. Got a job. I won't be gone long - it's just a routine run for Clayman." She pulled something out of her vest and put it on the nightstand. Akabane peered over at the cell phone and then looked to her.

"I'm leaving you my brother's old phone. It still works, I charged it last night. If you need something you can text me. My number's stored in the menu." She pointed a finger at him. "Stay in bed, Jackal. I mean it. I don't want you cracking your head open on my watch. If you want I can call Maguruma when I come home and have him take you wherever you want to go."

Akabane shook his head again. Much as he loathed his current predicament, it was preferable to the alternative, for the time being.

"All right. See you later." Himiko turned and left the room, pausing in the doorway to give him one last wary glance.

Akabane closed his eyes and forced himself to be patient, even through the sound of a motorcycle starting up outside. He silently counted off the minutes until he judged it safe, tugging away the ice packs and bedcovers for greater freedom of mobility. Then, summoning all his remaining strength, he pushed himself up and off the bed.

The pain was like fire racing through his body. He ground his teeth, forcing it back behind a facade of indifference. He would not be bidden to its call. Akabane clutched the brass bedpost with both hands, eyes pinched shut while he fought off the dizzying waves crashing through his head.

Lady Poison meant well, he understood, and he was not ungrateful for her assistance. But he couldn't stay here, not like some helpless child. He would find a way to make it to his own den where he could nurse his wounds in peace and solitude. Akabane opened his eyes and gathered his reserves once more, hobbling across the room.

His legs were unsteadier than he cared for, and he gripped onto the closest available solid objects, or walls, that he could find for support, inching his way out of Himiko's bedroom and into the hall, past the bathroom where he'd presumably bled like a river. Several times he had to stop and catch his breath, and he managed a few wordless hisses of exasperation at his weakened state. How truly pathetic.

He made his way into the living room and spotted a large shadow against the wall, near the front door. His coat, hanging in a dry cleaner's clear plastic bag, and his hat above it, on the hooks. She must have had them cleaned for him, how thoughtful. He didn't see the rest of his clothes anywhere nearby, but he decided it didn't matter - he could always send for them later. Akabane fumbled his way over to the garment bag, glad that his cohort had seen fit to place these things within easy reach. Already he was covered in a fine film of sweat and he felt like every limb had been twisted and pulled beyond its limits. He couldn't do anything about his bare feet, but with any luck, the hat and coat would hide the rest of him well enough until he reached safer ground.

He had to lean against the wall next to the coat for a few minutes, resisting the urge to collapse in a heap upon the floor from his exertions. Finally Akabane put out a hand and grabbed onto the bag, trying to unhook it from its peg so he could tear off the plastic and put his coat on. In jostling the coat, he dislodged a small yellow note that fluttered onto the sleeve of his robe. He picked it off and looked at it.

_You have about thirty seconds to get back into bed before the Paralysis Perfume takes effect._

Conniving little _witch!_ Ignoring the scratchiness of his throat Akabane let out a volley of curses that Ban Midou would have been proud of and crumpled the note in his fist. He grappled for purchase as he struggled to turn around and stumble back towards the bedroom before the perfume's timing hit him. It was all he could do not to bump into and knock over Himiko's furniture on his way, and he wasn't entirely certain how well he succeeded. But he made it, gasping and swearing as he flung himself onto the mattress, having returned to his gossamer prison with barely two seconds left.

He was too exhausted now to bother dragging the covers back over himself; the most he could manage was to shove his feet beneath the blankets. He flopped onto his side, not caring that his head wasn't even on the pillow, and lost consciousness as blessed darkness swallowed him whole.

XXXXX

TBC


	3. Slow recovery

Blood Oaths, ch. 3

XXXXX

The television was on, but Himiko wasn't paying much attention to it. She only had it on for background noise while she sorted through her email on her laptop. Work had been quiet of late and she was catching up on underground news while she waited to hear from any prospective clients. Keeping herself properly distracted had become important as well – caring for a troublesome patient was hard work in itself. It had now been almost three weeks since she'd found Doctor Jackal near death.

She shook her head, reminded of the day she'd come back from her job to find that Akabane, unsurprisingly, had disobeyed the order to stay put. She couldn't blame him, she supposed; being sick in a strange place wasn't her idea of any fun either. But she'd had an active day, made twice as difficult from her lack of concentration, worrying over Akabane, what he could be up to in her absence, so when she'd returned home later to find him sprawled across the bed with her note still clenched in his hand she'd wanted to shake him awake and spell some sense into him. She was still amazed he hadn't bled any more since that awful day.

Logically, she knew, there wasn't anything she could do to stop him if he'd really wanted to go. Himiko was surprised that her bluff had worked as well as it had. Akabane had a will of steel even without using his knives, and once his mind was made up to act nothing on earth could stand in his way. She'd known that he would want to leave as soon as possible, having been seen at his lowest point, and she didn't begrudge him the humiliation he must have felt.

In a way, she felt responsible for him. She'd saved his life; having made that commitment, the least she could do was to follow through, keeping steward until such time as Akabane could once more take up his jackal's mantle and walk the deathly shroud amongst the living. She recalled again the unusual anxiety she'd felt upon contemplating his possible death.

Ban always said she was out to prove something. He was only half-right. Himiko did want to prove herself, but more to herself than to anyone else; that was why she struggled to be the best, be a pro, fought so hard to maintain her dignity and standing in a world where the ground could shift to sand and fall out from beneath one's feet in seconds. Her opinion was the one that mattered most.

Well, perhaps, except for one other person's...

If she could call him that. Doctor Jackal seemed so inhuman most of the time that it was easy to mistake him for a specter instead of a flesh and blood mortal.

But he was mortal, and she owed him a debt of gratitude, if nothing else, for all that he'd taught her, whether directly or indirectly. It was because of Akabane that she'd merited her own footing in the transport business, and she'd scratched, clawed and bitten her way to the top alongside her two other highly-ranked (or lowly, depending on who you were talking to) comrades-in-arms. Until she'd achieved a reputation for herself, no one else had been willing to gamble on her as either a partner or an agent.

He was a strange one, that man, so sleek and sharp with words as well as weapons, a living blade if ever there was one. Still, there were glimpses of other things behind the knives, if one knew how to look for them. If one even cared to try. She'd worked with him countless occasions, so she held a special status in that regard. Whether by sheer dumb luck or the osmosis of time, the transporters had become a sort of family, linked to each other through shared experience and goals, as close as any blood-kin, and Himiko had come to read Akabane fairly well.

She realized that she felt something for him in spite of his lethal habit, which she'd told him in so many words repulsed her and which bothered him not one whit. He'd merely smiled and nodded and dismissed her criticism with the same wordless shrugs he always reserved for those who found fault with his methods. _Opinion duly noted and ignored,_ his casual attitude seemed to say, _now let me have my fun. _

She would have taken him at face value – most people did, if they had the sense to want to live – if it hadn't been for the way he treated her. Over time, he'd unbent enough to permit her a verbal jousting that few others would never have survived. Himiko could rant and rail at him for ditching in the middle of a job because he was bored, and know that she was safe from the dreaded carrion's mark. She could press her limits against him in physical quarters, throw the occasional upset or playful punch, and so long as she didn't challenge him directly or interfere with his business, he would grant her safe passage through the crossroads of life and death.

She supposed that all of this could, of course, just be subject to Akabane's mercurial whims. He did everything for a reason even if that reason was simply to amuse himself while waiting for conflicts to present themselves. He claimed no loyalty to anyone or any creed, save that of self-interest. Yet Himiko found herself conflicted as she remembered little things in the past, small gestures that before had gone unremarked-upon and now signaled new possibilities in the fertile roots of her dreams. It was almost as if for her, and her alone, that the Jackal would let slip some of his mask just enough to expose the man beneath it.

Wishful thinking. All just the same, Himiko found herself nurturing that wish as a pair of purple eyes taunted her in waking thought. Akabane, when he wasn't bent on bloodshed, could be rather enjoyable to be with. Perhaps most importantly, he took her seriously when no one else would. If he did sometimes toss a few barbed comments her way, it could be argued that it was because he trusted her to be able to match his wit. How many others could say the same?

At least he was improving – slowly, but he could sit up in bed now and speak. They hadn't talked much thus far. Himiko wasn't sure what there was for them to discuss, even if she had felt like – and she did – chatting simply for the sake of polite company. Neither of them was given toward idle conversation even under better circumstances. They both believed, in their own ways, that words ought to count for something if uttered at all.

Himiko glanced at the clock on the wall and shut her laptop, having concluded minor business for the time being. She told herself that it was close to lunchtime anyway as she got up and headed for the bedroom.

Akabane was propped up on several pillows, a book balanced in his lap. Under pain of perfume hypnosis, he'd grudgingly allowed himself to be confined indefinitely. Himiko figured it was more that he had weighed his options and chosen the lesser of two evils to preserve the remainder of his dignity. When he was ready, he would, as stealthy and silently as a cat, slink away under her nose without her ever realizing it, until the whispers of an empty room voiced her suspicions.

Himiko had plans to foil that little move. She admitted to a dangerous curiosity and wanted to know just how he'd ended up in her care. She called it self-preservation – staying one step ahead of Mugenjou's deadly masters was always in one's best interests – but secretly there was more to it. And she wanted to hear Akabane say it.

Problem was, he wouldn't. She couldn't figure out a way to get him to confess, either. Not one that would keep all her limbs intact, anyway.

Akabane plucked a bookmark from the pages and settled it in place before laying the book aside and raising a brow at her. Absent was the familiar smile. He looked decidedly put out. "You haven't come with any more of that gods-awful medicine, have you?"

She could forgive the bit of snippiness in his tone. Maria's concoctions worked wonders, but left a lot to be desired for taste. "No, I came to ask you if you were hungry. It's lunchtime. Can I fix you something?"

Some of the starchness left his face as he relaxed. "I suppose. Thank you."

Himiko crossed the room and put her palm against Akabane's forehead. "You're not running a fever anymore and you've gotten better, so you won't need the medicine again."

"Good. Then you needn't trouble yourself on my account any longer. I ought to be on my way, if you'll kindly point me towards my things."

He started to move back the bedcovers and get up, but Himiko put her hand on his chest and pushed him back onto the pillows. "Nice try, but sorry. You're not fully recovered yet. You still need help moving around."

Akabane's eyes narrowed and his mouth thinned in a quiet hiss. "How much longer are you going to make me stay, then? I'm sick of bed rest."

"I'm sure you are," Himiko said, not without sympathy, as she straightened the blankets over his legs. "But you seem to forget what kind of a beating you took. I don't know what your record for battle damage is, but I've never seen that much blood before, and that includes what you leave behind after you're done having fun on assignment."

Akabane settled into the pillows, a dour sulk firmly in place. "That was the problem. I was on assignment." When she looked at him, he at last deigned to elaborate. "I was making a delivery to a client who requested that we meet in Lower Town. After the drop-off I ran into that meddlesome Observer." His eyes pinched shut in unwelcome remembrance. "I tried to fight him, but as usual, he ran off like a cowardly rat. After that...everything becomes a blank."

Not quite everything, she sensed. Himiko could tell by the way his eyes darkened and slid downward to his hands that there was something he wasn't sharing, but for now, this was a start. "You don't remember what Kagami did when you chased him?"

Akabane shook his head. "I remember following him...into a large corridor. It was dark. I saw him run behind a door. I went after him. When I opened that door..." His eyes closed again, then reopened, as a frown knit his face. "It was like a desert sandstorm exploding into my lungs."

"Sounds like a diamond dust blast, all right. He must have booby-trapped it somehow. Duplicated himself in hiding so he wouldn't suffer the effects while his clone led you into the trap."

"It was an annoyingly efficient deception, to be sure."

Himiko glanced at the sour curve of his mouth and guessed that he was more annoyed by his own gullibility than he was with Kagami's trickery. Doctor Jackal did not suffer fools so easily.

"Deception trips up even the best of us sometimes, I guess."

He didn't look pleased by that. "Well, the next time I cross paths with that prancing git, I intend to have more than just a few sharp words with him. His routine avoidance is getting very irksome."

Vengeful daggers flashed in his eyes as he spoke, and Himiko was thankful that she wasn't standing in Kagami's shoes at this moment. The Observer would do well to watch his back from now on, she thought with grim satisfaction. She had her own ax to grind with Kagami, thanks to past encounters.

"I went grocery shopping yesterday. Is there anything in particular you'd like for lunch?"

Akabane shrugged. "Whatever you have is fine with me."

Himiko went to the kitchen and searched her refrigerator. In ten minutes she'd prepared some sandwiches and soup for herself and Akabane. She set the food on a tray and took it back to the bedroom. Her portion, she placed on the dresser; the remainder that was his, she left on the tray, and brought it to him, placing the tray carefully in his lap.

"Bon appetit."

"Thank you."

They ate in mostly silence while Himiko pulled up a chair and sat next to him. At one point Akabane paused in the middle of his soup and gave her a look. "Really, Himiko-san, there's no need to keep me here when I can just as easily recuperate in my own place. I've imposed on you long enough."

She shook her head. "I found you, I cleaned you up, and I've been taking care of you ever since. You're my responsibility until you're back on your feet."

"Your thoroughness is respectable, but there are limits even to missions. I told you, you're absolved of any perceived obligation."

"Am I?" Himiko held his stare. "How professional of me is it if I just left you on your way while you're still vulnerable? You can't even get up and get a drink of water without needing me to support you." Immediately she regretted her words, for he wouldn't appreciate that reminder of his weakness.

Indeed, Akabane's eyes darkened as he glared at her now. "Spare me the noble martyrdom. We're beyond those games. Why are you really keeping me here?"

Himiko held back an exasperated sigh and stood up to collect their dishes. "Fine. If Kagami can knock down someone as powerful as you, what might he be planning for me? You know Babylon and the Trust haven't forgiven the last time we trespassed on their turf. You're insurance."

"A prudent thought, but I assure you, my presence is unnecessary." He pushed away the remains of his now-finished lunch for her to take.

"We'll see. As long as you've gone to ground, they don't know what became of you. For all they know you've picked yourself up and walked off as if nothing ever happened. Given your normal abilities that's not such a far-fetched scenario. And if you are alive and well out there, the risk of confronting you is too great."

Akabane's scowl deepened. Drat. She had him there.

Himiko took the empty dishes to the kitchen and set them in the sink. She thought for a moment how she could further target a soft spot to press her point. When she came back to Akabane she said, "I'm sorry I'm such a lousy host. I don't get to have company over that often, so I guess I'm out of practice."

He sighed, the traces of his irritation melted by an innate insistence on proper manners. "It isn't that. You have nothing to apologize for, Himiko-san. Truly, you've been perfectly gracious, and if I haven't been as considerate of your efforts, it is only because I am not in the best of states at present. Though I realize that isn't much of an excuse, with everything that you've done for me." He offered a wan, self-deprecatory smile.

She smiled back, accepting this small victory she'd scored. "Are you still feeling sore?"

He hesitated, still uncomfortable with others witnessing him in such a precarious position. "A little. My back, mostly."

"I'll see what I can do." Himiko came to his side and fluffed the pillows, helping him to adjust his body so that he was more at ease. She took up the book he'd been reading and put it by his hand. "Better?"

"Thank you." He nudged the book he'd been reading. "Now, if you could only improve upon this author's storytelling skill, I think I would be ready to take on the rest of this afternoon."

She glanced at the title. It was one she'd found at a recent yard sale and had picked up only because it was cheap. She hadn't thought it was that entertaining either. "I can't control what he writes, but if you're bored with it, I can bring you something else. Or you could watch a movie in the other room."

"Mm."

He didn't look any happier about being ensconced in the living room than he did the bed. Confinement was confinement, she supposed. He was a man of action, not idleness. Still, there was something to be said for keeping one's mind occupied and off of more troublesome matters. "Why don't you come stay on the couch for a while? I promise I won't put anything stupid on the TV."

Akabane considered this. Part of his ennui stemmed from lack of stimulation and having someone else to talk to would help to pass time. They might not have had much in common, but Himiko was more interesting than most people and was more accepting of his, shall it be said, eccentricities. Inasmuch as those eccentricities could be accepted by a human...

"All right."

Himiko waited while he pushed back the bedcovers and slowly sat up. She only approached when he'd swung his legs over the side of the bed and was ready to attempt standing. Mindful of his pride, she offered her assistance when he required it, but otherwise allowed him to set the pace as he moved, and then, they moved, laboriously, towards the living room, her arm around his waist and his hand on her shoulder. Occasionally he grunted with the effort, while Himiko tracked his progress. He was gaining in recovery. Not that he would be up to run marathons by the end of this week, but he was steadier, not quite as wobbly on his feet.

"You're getting better. Maybe I'll give you your present early."

"Present?"

They came to the couch and she helped him sink onto it, arranging its two pillows underneath his side so he'd have something to rest comfortably on for the moment while she went and fetched more. "I got you something when I bought my groceries. Wait, I'll be right back."

Himiko went to her linen closet and got out the long white box that stood in the back of the corner. She then went into her bedroom to get a couple more pillows and a blanket, and carried all these things, balanced carefully in her arms, back to Akabane.

The pillows were the first things she rationed out. She put one down behind his back, by his hips, and the other two went with the couch cushions for him to rest his upper body on. The blanket she spread over him once he'd lain down. She'd found some more of Yamato's clothes for him to wear. Right now Akabane was clad in a pair of dark blue pajamas that had once belonged to her brother. She folded the ends of the blanket over his bare feet and tucked them in.

Akabane watched her while she took the fleece throw that was draped over the back of the couch and unfolded it. "If you hadn't become a transporter, you'd have made an excellent nurse."

Himiko shook out the throw and placed it over him, up by his shoulders and chest, so he'd have enough warmth. "How so?"

"Some nurses don't think to keep a patient's feet warm. Hospital blankets are always so inadequate. You pay attention to the finer details." He paused, then added, "I appreciate that."

Himiko stood by him, appraising her work. She smiled at him. "You're welcome. I'd give you some socks, except that I don't want you slipping on the floors if you lose your balance. Wait until you're a little stronger. In the meantime," she said as she turned and picked up the long box, "I got you this."

She passed the box to Akabane and he opened it. Out slid a black wooden cane with a matching rubber tip and faux-silver handle. The end of the handle was shaped like a dog's head. It wasn't quite the classical jackal's snout, but it was close enough.

"I was going to get you a cane anyway, but that one reminded me of you," Himiko said.

Akabane turned it around in his hands, studying the way the light reflected off the metallic surfaces. Appropriate, indeed. If one must be beset by the indignity of infirmity, one might as well try to derive what small pleasures there could be found from it. A part of him was mildly touched that she'd thought to pick something semi-personal. Then he frowned. Emotions were a luxury he didn't need at this point.

But still. She had gone to a lot of trouble for him. The least he could do in return was accept this gift in the good faith that it was intended. He looked up at her and smiled.

"You like it?"

"I do. Thank you."

She took the empty box and put it on top of her kitchen table; the cane was tucked in by his side so it would be within reach if he needed it. "Are you comfortable?"

"For now. The extra pillows help."

Himiko nodded. "I'll get some movies and you can pick out the one you want."

While she was doing that on the other side of the room Akabane looked some more at his new cane. Good. This would make escape a lot easier. He contemplated using it to walk right out of here this very night, while Himiko slept, but a twinge in his muscles made him rethink that idea. As much as he hated to admit it, she was right – he was still too weak to get very far. And he had no wish to encounter anything or anyone hostile enough to pick a fight that he would be in no condition to give his full attention to.

Which meant that he was stuck indefinitely. Damn it all.

Akabane held back a sigh and put the cane down. It could be worse, he supposed. His benefactor could have been someone much less hospitable. Himiko had cared enough to cover up his feet from the chill. She hadn't – yet – complained about all the blood he'd left for her to clean up, either. She'd nursed him back from the brink of the void out of what was perhaps some foolish sense of camaraderie, but he could respect her indomitable will to complete what she saw as a unique mission that he would clearly get the better bargain from, once he'd recovered fully.

"I want to start taking regular walks. The exercise will do some good."

"Not while I'm away," Himiko answered, her back still to him. "If you fall and hit your head, you're screwed if there's no one around to help. I'll work with you. Every day."

In spite of himself Akabane felt a small smile creep along his lips at her feisty orders. Yes, things could definitely be less pleasant. As long as she understood that she wasn't going to interfere with his ultimate designs, they would get along fine and he could accept her temporary authority as steward.

Himiko came over to the couch, carrying a small stack of DVDs. As she started to hold them up one by one so he could see each title, Akabane received another nice surprise: she had good taste in viewing material.

"You enjoy these types of movies, Himiko-san?" For one so young, he wouldn't have thought that of her.

She set one DVD down and picked up another. "This one's one of my favorites. My brother used to sing the title song to me sometimes when I had trouble sleeping as a little kid." She ducked her head then, looking somewhat embarrassed to have confessed such trivia. "Yamato liked a lot of older things, black-and-white films, so we were raised on them, Ban and me, when it was the three of us. They have a certain...charm, to them, I think."

"That they do," Akabane agreed.

She showed him several more DVDs and he chose one that, as it happened, she also had a fancy for. She didn't say so, but he could tell by the little quiver of a smile at the ends of her lips that threatened to mar her controlled composure. While she was setting up the movie in its player he said, "You're not really afraid of Kagami-kun, are you, Himiko-san?"

She hit the play button on a remote control and took up a seat next to him in a recliner. "No." She looked at him then. Her eyes were a rich indigo, open, forthright – and yet, inexplicably mysterious. "It's who he serves that has me concerned."

She used the remote to skip the previews and go straight to the movie's menu. Before she scrolled to the main option, Akabane said, "And what if I told you that he serves no one save himself?"

Himiko shook her head. "There's always a price. Either Kagami owes favors, or he's done something for someone else higher up that gives him access to favors. He's had his fingers in an awful lot of pies in the past for it to be coincidence."

"Naturally. He's a scientist. An observer. He'd rather manipulate the chess pieces than actually play the game himself. That's how he experiments." Akabane folded his hands on top of his chest, tilting his head on the pillow to look at her. "Even so, the time of the Child has long since passed. He has no use for you now. With the equilibrium restored to Mugenjou, the Trust has no need to meddle in the affairs of this world. They will set him to other tasks."

She frowned as she hit the play button. "Are you a betting man, Jackal? Because frankly, I wouldn't trust any of those Babylonians with a wet paper bag. I don't gamble when it's my life on the line."

His brow arched a little. "You're a transporter. Of course you gamble."

Now it was Himiko's turn to scowl. "That's different," she said flatly.

Akabane thought that amusing and would have said so, but now the movie was rolling into its opening credits and the actors were taking their places onscreen, so he kept silent. Together they watched the drama unfold, while in the meantime, their own lives provided an altogether more compelling play of action.

XXXXX

TBC


	4. Domestic Akabane

Greetings, all! Sorry it's been so long since I last updated any of my fics – it's been a crazy time for me lately. But I'm still writing!

XXXXX

Three months.

He really shouldn't have let it drag on this long. She hadn't asked and he wasn't about to volunteer the information, but Akabane was growing increasingly anxious about his scalpel dilemma. Not that knives had been a necessity thus far, going into the fourth month of convalescence. But Himiko was no fool. He'd said himself that she paid attention to details others would gloss over, and surely, if she were to look in her kitchen drawers just a tad closer, she'd notice that one small paring knife was absent from the far corner.

And certainly, if she were curious at all, she would search around, and find too that some tape and some string were missing out of the drawer where she kept her odds and ends, all those little pieces of debris that all people had but weren't sure what to do with and couldn't bring themselves to throw out. They now resided, along with the knife, under Akabane's sleeve where he could flick and retract his makeshift defense if he chose to.

He'd practiced, since he'd become healthy enough to walk on his own – the cane was a great help in that respect – and located the items he wanted whenever Himiko had to leave the flat on business. Each time Akabane had contemplated grabbing his hat and coat and just plain leaving, now that he was capable of walking – but one glance at the forbidden fruits still hanging on the wall, and he remembered the cheeky little note informing him of what would happen if he tried, and that desire would grudgingly settle.

Akabane didn't think that she would try to dose him with any spells, not now. But still. She had just enough ruthlessness of her own to make her a formidable adversary. He'd seen her on a few occasions, rolling an empty perfume bottle between her fingers while she wore a funny little smile as she eyed it. That had been enough to lodge a modicum of doubt in his mind.

Lady Poison was as stubborn as he was and just as apt to do as she pleased when she felt like it. All he need do whenever he felt like disobeying her instructions was to conjure an image of himself under thrall, a caricature of buffoonery under the regression scent, or a frozen statue by virtue of paralysis perfume.

Such would never do. He'd lost too much already.

So he kept quiet, let her tend him, and in time they settled into a somewhat comfortable pattern of sorts that Akabane found wasn't entirely unpleasant. In fact, it was almost kind of a relief. Like a vacation. No drab business on the Other Side to have to deal with, for one thing. There were no jobs here either, but then, he didn't need them. Keeping up with Lady Poison was a job in itself, and one that he decided he didn't mind so terribly even considering his inauspicious situation.

Himiko, he discovered, was not only the perfect nurse but a charming companion as well. She liked many of the same things he did: books, movies, foods, and she was a witty strategist in her own right when trading debate with him on the merits or faults of philosophies concerning any of these things. She was a fierce fighter even when the weapons were only words, and she could be twice as merciless as he was when it came to granting quarter during particularly heated exchanges. Dare he say, he was getting rather accustomed to her spitfire essence, and maybe...enjoying it.

In this he knew he had to guard himself closely. There was always the temptation to be consumed by the illusion, to think that there was something more between them other than their occupation and flexible alliance. He liked her well enough, he could admit, but it was merely the well-earned respect for one who had proven herself worthy. He believed her when she said she had no real fear of Kyouji Kagami, and when he'd later questioned her further on the subject, she'd told him the truth.

"A prison that traps the body is bad enough, but prisons for the mind are even worse. Brain Trust's power extends to manipulating how people think, from beginning to end. I don't want to live in their cage, whatever form it takes."

For her, he sensed that this was truly a fate worse than death. Even more surprisingly, he found it unfathomable that one such as her should suffer such cruelty. A spirit as bold and bright as hers ought always to fly free, unfettered. To force her otherwise would be a true crime, and not for the first time did he catch himself thinking that it was a very good thing Professor Makube had seen fit to include him in the assignment to thwart the Voodoo curse prophesied by the Archive.

He conveniently ignored the idea lurking in the back of his mind that his interest in that mission just might have been an indication that he was starting to see Himiko as a person separate from her identity as mere transporter.

A click by the front door drew his attention. Akabane looked up and saw Himiko coming inside. She looked tired, dirty, but most of all, ticked off. She slammed down a manila envelope on the kitchen table and headed for the sink to wash her hands, which were crusted with some dirt and dried blood.

"Good afternoon to you too," he called out to her from where he was sitting at the table.

Her sigh carried over the rush of running water. "Sorry. Bad day at work."

"That depends on what you consider bad. Myself, I'm jealous that I missed out on all the action. But you won't let me out of my pen, so I must be content with living vicariously through the tales of your escapades," he needled. That was another reason Akabane hadn't lit out of her place as soon as he could walk on his own. He'd spotted the little vials placed strategically at windows and doors. The scent wafting forth from them had been innocuous enough, but he wasn't about to breach the exits and find out the hard way just what those poison perfumes could do.

Not that he'd been idle in the meantime. Himiko had let him use her computer, and he'd spent the time contacting, or trying to, various people of differing importance. He had questions. They had answers. Getting anything worthwhile, though, had been difficult at best. Akabane had made an unpleasant discovery during one session. The City had locked him out of its system without so much as a hint to why. Since that access was crucial to his plans, he'd been searching for other ways into it, through Makubex, the boy genius. But not even Makubex's skills thus far had been enough to crack the seemingly impenetrable code safeguarding the Trust's secrets. A most worrisome development indeed.

Still, there were other methods. And Akabane was persistent. What he wanted, he got. There could be no other option.

Himiko finished washing her hands and took a damp cloth to blot at the raw, oozing patches on her knees from where she'd scraped skin on pavement. "Those perfumes aren't meant to keep you in," she told Akabane now. "They're to keep others out."

"Oh? Is your home part of a particularly uninhabitable section of town, that you should have to resort to such means?"

"No." She paused in cleaning her wounds and gave him a pointed look. "Some tails sprouted behind my back while I wasn't looking. It seems like on-again-off-again surveillance, but I don't trust them. They look...skeevy."

Akabane frowned, not liking the sound of that. He quelled the impulse of worry that reared its head. It could be nothing, after all. As transporters they were used to being kept under scrutinizing watch by the occasional paranoid client or lustful competition. "Define 'skeevy,'" he said.

Himiko pulled at the torn sections of her catsuit where her knees were exposed. "Dressed like government spooks but slicker in their movements. And they don't seem to care whether I notice them or not." She shook her head when he glanced at the door she'd come through. "They're not out there now. But I've seen them around a few times while you were resting. I thought they might be yakuza at first."

She looked at him, clearly expecting an informative reply. Instead Akabane remained silent, thinking. It could be nothing worth getting worked up over. But a sly, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach told otherwise, and it was this quagmire he was trying to control so that Lady Poison wouldn't grow too suspicious.

"That could be the case," he said, keeping his voice level. "I daresay Rukio-san wasn't terribly pleased with me when I dispatched his favorite bodyguard this past spring." Akabane closed the laptop he'd been working on and sat back in the chair, folding his hands in his lap as he neatly changed the subject. "But looking at you, somehow I don't think that yakuza were the source of your displeasure today."

Himiko's eyes had narrowed slightly; she didn't appear to buy his initial explanation, but at the mention of her own activities her focus shifted as her anger sparked anew. "Two words, and you don't get a prize for guessing correctly," she growled. "That damn Varlou! One of these days I'm going to stuff him so full of flame perfume that he bursts like a balloon!"

Akabane couldn't help it; he laughed. The rival transporters known as the Party Crashers weren't any more beloved to him than they were Himiko. Their leader, Varlou, had been known to ruin more than a handful of Doctor Jackal's own playtimes. For a moment he forgot his own unease as he said, "I hope you do, because I would like to see that. That, or Maguruma runs him over with his truck. I'd even foot the bill for a wash and wax job afterwards."

"You and me both." Himiko grinned for a second before reverting to her earlier temper. "It took all seven of my regular perfumes just to hold those ghouls off, and when the poisons ran dry, I had to slug it out barehanded. But," she said crisply, pointing at the envelope she'd dropped on the table, "I made my delivery and got my money, so I still win." Her chin lifted with visible pride at her success.

"May I congratulate you then on your victory."

"Thanks." Himiko finished washing up and dabbed at her cuts with a towel to stem the bleeding from a few of the worse wounds. She glanced at the cane that was hanging off the back of his chair. "How's the footwork coming?"

"Better, thank you." Akabane was still trying to decide whether or not he would keep the cane once he left here. On the one hand, he didn't care to be reminded of its inherent symbolism, its purpose for the weak. On the other, it gave him something of a distinguished appearance, if one didn't look too closely at it to see that it was an actual aid instead of a stylish prop. Currently he was leaning towards keeping it, if only because she had chosen it for him with his alias in mind. He could appreciate that sort of thoughtfulness.

Himiko eyed him in between swipes of her towel. "Sure you're not just saying that to get out of here?"

Akabane met her gaze. "With all due respect, you can hardly blame me. I can't stay bedridden, cooped up here forever, Himiko-san. I do have a life to tend to when I'm not transporting assignments." He paused, watching her as she straightened and slung the towel over one shoulder. "Aren't you going to put something on those?" He nodded to her scratches.

"Should I?"

"They might scar."

"So?"

Akabane didn't like that, but he wasn't inclined to dwell too deeply on why. Surely it was just because it presented an incomplete picture, which was intolerable to his sense of order. As a surgeon he'd taken pride in his ability to repair fleshly damage; he supposed that, while scraped knees certainly weren't on par with transplant operations, they still deserved the proper attention as befitting such skill.

"Sit down. Where is your medicine cabinet?"

Himiko shook her head. "Don't worry about it. I'll throw some iodine on them later, if I remember. I've had worse. You should've seen some of the shiners I got when my brother and I worked jobs."

She started to move past him into the living room, but he took up his cane and pointed the end of it at her, blocking her path. "Be that as it may. You could be risking trouble if those wounds aren't properly treated. If you get an infection, it means you'll have to take time to recover, and that in turn means my own recovery will be delayed indefinitely since you won't be up to looking after me."

Himiko frowned as she pushed at the cane. "How so?"

Akabane shrugged. "I'll want to leave. Without your restraint, I'll push myself too hard in an attempt to speed along the process. Slip on the tile, perhaps, or pull a muscle in my back. It takes quite a bit of time to heal a back injury, you know."

Himiko's eyebrow lifted a little.

Akabane pressed his case. "I treated a man once who'd lifted one too many heavy objects. He suffered no permanent damage, but he was down for months before he could so much as turn over in bed without assistance. One truly doesn't realize just how involved the back is with the rest of the body until one suffers that kind of excruciating pain."

Himiko sighed and dropped into one of the chairs. "I keep some stuff in the bathroom."

"Very good."

Collecting the necessary supplies took little time, even accounting for his slow pace. Himiko kept a tidy cabinet. Akabane took what he needed and hobbled back to the kitchen, pulling up a chair in front of her.

"What would you like to do for supper tonight?" she asked as he started applying some peroxide with a cotton swab.

"What did you have in mind?"

"I was thinking stir-fry. I have some fresh vegetables I bought the other day."

"That will do nicely. You wash, I'll chop."

Himiko managed a small grin. "Anything to play with knives, huh?"

Akabane looked up from his work, a tinge of amusement dancing around the edges of his lips. "I am the more experienced at handling sharp tools."

"Hey, I can wield a mean meat cleaver when I have to."

"Is that so."

He picked out a few small bandages and began divesting them of their protective wrappers. While he was peeling off the adhesive strips and applying them to Himiko's scrapes, she said, "This one time, Ban tried to steal some cookies I was making. I grabbed the nearest butcher knife and waved it at him, and it slipped right out of my fingers and landed point-down right between his legs. After that he stuck to insulting my cooking, as opposed to snitching it. He said I was dangerous enough in the kitchen without being given additional weapons." She smiled at the memory.

"The look on his face must have been priceless," Akabane said. "He's wrong, though. You cook very well. At least, I have no complaints."

She looked pleased. "I'm no four-star chef but I know my way around a stove. Anyway, it's easier for him to gripe than actually do the chore himself. He'd rather eat food than make it."

"An activity that, judging from the numerous observations made by Ginji-kun's crowd and the mountain of debt he's accrued at Wan-san's diner, he apparently excels at. When he has the money to do so, of course." Akabane finished placing the last bandage. "There. That's better."

"Thanks." Himiko gave him a curious look. "This is really why I don't want to let you leave, Jackal. I like keeping you around. You're useful."

"With my reputation?"

A hint of feral glee lit Himiko's smile. "It's not every day that I bag someone willing to do the less glamorous work for me."

"And thus your ulterior motives are revealed. Should I be flattered or insulted by such esteem?"

"Take your pick. Either way, I never said I was a saint."

He smiled. "Thank heavens for that. Sainthood is vastly overrated."

"Better a rogue than a dead saint?" she said without rancor as she got up to fetch the fixings for their dinner.

Akabane shrugged. "You know what they say. 'Only the good die young.' I've never had any patience for martyrs. What fun is there when you're not even around to enjoy the celebration in your name?"

"I think you'd have gotten along eerily well with my brother," Himiko said as she pulled the food from the refrigerator and started to wash it in the sink. "Yamato always said when we were between jobs and he was bored, 'Come on, let's go do something even if it's wrong.' I think he liked the taste of risk more than he was willing to admit in front of me. Sometimes I think that's why he chose poisons as his tools to work with. He enjoyed that mixture of surprise and calculation."

Akabane pulled up a chair next to her and took out a knife from the drawer to cut up the cleaned vegetables. "I always thought it was in the blood, you two being from that lineage."

"It is. But the way Yamato explained it to me, it makes sense too. Conventional wisdom argues for stacking the deck in your favor to achieve your goal, and what better way to do that than by throwing out a weapon the enemy isn't prepared to deal with?" Himiko looked thoughtful as she paused with a handful of carrots. "We just happened to have a certain talent for it. Not many people are trained to combat magics. Most aren't even aware they exist, much less how to properly manipulate them."

"You're right, I think I would have quite liked your brother."

"Except that he wasn't big on leaving dead weight behind. Emphasis on the dead," Himiko reminded him. "Easier to get away with being a plunderer if you've a reputation for nonviolence."

"Ah well," Akabane said. "No one's perfect."

"Present company included?"

He shot her a look. "If a body count was all I was after, I could paint this town crimson sideways and back again in a single night. There's an art to the _danse macabre. _Once a challenge has been issued, who am I to turn it down? Great achievements don't come from passing up opportunities."

Himiko knew there wasn't anything she could say that would persuade him otherwise, so all she offered to that was a wordless snort. Akabane was tactful enough not to comment further.

To pass the time while their dinner cooked, she turned on the evening news. At one point during the broadcast, the anchorman switched to a story on the local mafia. A formerly high-ranked boss had made early parole, allegedly due to the machinations of an unknown benefactor. Himiko looked up from stirring the food to catch replayed footage of a bald-headed man in orange prison garb being led from a courtroom. The face was vaguely familiar, but she wasn't sure why. "Hey. I know that guy from somewhere..."

Akabane twisted around in his chair to look. The man's heavy brow was set in rigid ice as the cameras flashed repeatedly. "Ah. Ryuu Mouen, I believe his name is."

"You know him?"

"Only by association. I didn't deal with him myself but I passed him briefly during a past assignment for a mutual client. I was transporting materials to some art auction he was hosting."

Himiko snapped her fingers. "The job with the fake Venus de Milo! Now I remember. Ban told me about it. He said you were a real pain in the ass. But then he always says that about you," she added.

"Well, I tried, but he wasn't amenable to the exercise," Akabane chuckled, unaffected by his rival's critique. "It was an otherwise respectable job, even if it wasn't terribly remarkable. The company could have been better though." He turned away from the television's broadcast, content to ignore the rest of it. "I didn't get to spend half as much time with the Get Backers as I wanted, and both the client and Mouen were a bit on the prickly side."

"It's always something with the clients," Himiko said. "What'd they complain about this time, the usual?"

"Well, I can't speak for Miss Hera. I think she was one of those types that isn't happy unless they have something to be miserable about, whether it's real or imagined. Mouen was just unpleasant. Very brusque fellow, accustomed to having everyone around him follow his schedules and rules regardless of inconvenience. And he had a pair of pets always trailing him everywhere he went. Bodyguards, presumably. Likewise with about as much personality as dried algae." Akabane smirked, remembering the way the twins had flinched when he'd dared them to press his limits.

"Took them out easy, did you?"

"Sadly, no, I never got the chance to confront them. I heard from the grapevine that they were dispatched by Fuyuki-san the Beastmaster and his friend Haruki-san. But I'm told that your brother gave Mouen quite the nasty nightmare with his Evil Eye."

"He sure did," Himiko agreed. "Made the crook walk right into a police station and all but confess to his crimes. He thought he was about to make a drug deal instead!"

The food was ready and she dished it up, and they sat at the table to eat while discussing other subjects of interest, mostly trivial matters that they shared matching opinions on. Midway through the meal Himiko's laptop chimed, and Akabane went to check it. When he was finished with the email he sat back, looking decidedly content.

"Good news," Himiko guessed.

"Mm."

"And?"

Akabane paused, resting his chopsticks on the plate. His eyes revealed nothing. "You won't like it."

"Tell me and then I'll decide if I do or don't."

He shrugged. "I'm going out to meet with a contact next week."

"No you're not," Himiko said mildly.

"I told you you wouldn't like it," Akabane said, equally as mild.

Himiko watched him with a sharper focus as he resumed eating. Several seconds of silence ensued and then she spoke. "You're not going anywhere, Jackal."

He didn't falter in his motions or reply. "It's a matter of necessity so yes, I am."

"Business can wait."

"Not this business, so let's accept this one breach and move on," Akabane said, his tone dropping into slight frost as his gaze flicked up to hers in silent warning. "Your concern for my welfare is touching but not necessary. This is merely an informational exchange, not a prospective battle."

They finished eating in silence. Finally Himiko said, "I'll let you out on one condition."

Akabane's expression turned distinctly chilly. "You're not in the position of issuing conditions, Lady Poison."

Himiko knew she ought to stand down at this point, but curiosity and suspicion spurred her onward. She raised a brow at him. "Which one of us isn't at full strength, again?"

Akabane's eyes narrowed. More silence filled the room.

Himiko waited.

"What's your condition?"

"I go with you."

"I don't need a nanny."

"Not as sitter. Backup." When Akabane looked ready to object she said, "I'm not going to get in your way, I'm just doing the professional thing, remember? You'd do the same for me if our places were reversed."

A full frown claimed his lips as he pondered this. Akabane studied the table's surface, mulling it over. At last he looked up at her.

"All right. This one time, I'll allow it. But," he said, noticing the brief satisfaction crossing her face. "I'd advise you to remember, Himiko-san. Useful or not, there will come a day soon when I leave here on my own will. Accepting that fact would be professional too."

The unspoken tension threaded between them like an exposed dagger. Suddenly Akabane smiled. "Now. What shall we do for entertainment tonight?"

Himiko didn't smile back, but she relaxed a little. "Do you like board games? I don't play very often but I found some in the building when I first moved in."

"Bring out what you have and let's see."

He helped her clear the dinner table so they could set up a board. She searched through her collection and showed him the available choices. They decided on Monopoly, with a twist: instead of playing for money, they took the pieces from the Life game and bartered with "blood points" as the winning objective.

Himiko got first turn and rolled the dice. "Baltic Avenue. That one's worth a flesh wound. What time's your meeting with the source?"

Akabane separated one little stick figure peg from the rest. "Eleven. Did you have some other preference?"

"I was thinking that if we met your contact during night hours, it'd be easier to ditch my visitors if they can't see us so easily."

"Ah, them." He took his turn. "The railroad. Full casualty on that." He waited for her to hand over her kill. "The next time they pop up let me know. I'd like to get a peek at them if possible."

Himiko watched him carefully. "You have an idea who they are?"

Akabane remained noncommittal. "Maybe."

"Are they going to be a problem?"

"Not if they don't annoy us," he said cheerfully.

Himiko didn't immediately roll her turn. "That's not an answer, Akabane."

"Of course it is. It's just not the one you want to hear."

A half-smile made her mouth twitch. Back on familiar ground, it was one of those instances when his jovial independence left her strung between shared amusement and the frustrated urge to smack him into compliance. The best way to handle it was to ride the wave alongside him. "So give me the answer you know I want."

The brief twinkle in his eye told her he was aware of her tactics and was playing along because it suited him for the moment. "If I do, and it turns out my assessment was wrong, you'll only be upset with me for having misled you."

"Since when has my criticism ever stopped you from doing anything? You're a big boy, you can take the punches."

They were both smiling now, neither one willing to give any ground. "You dwell too much on needless conjurings," Akabane told her, not ungently. "It's pointless to worry unless we have to." He nudged the die toward her. "It's still your turn."

She picked them up, but let them roll in her palm instead of tumbling them right away. "It's not pointless worrying. I like being prepared. If trouble's going to knock, I want to know so I can kick its teeth in before it smashes down my door."

Akabane considered this. He did, after all, owe her some sort of reasonable explanation, he supposed. The nagging anxiety in the back of his mind had not gone away since she'd told him about her mysterious watchers. The sooner he knew what that was all about the better. If it _was_ something to be concerned with...

Surely it couldn't be. Hadn't he just said that worrying was useless? But coincidence was not something to be trusted...

He let his smile drop into seriousness. "Mind you, this is purely speculation for now. But would you feel any better if I told you that these people aren't a threat to you?"

She still wouldn't loose the dice. "But they are to you."

"I didn't say that."

"You don't have to."

Akabane's eyes slipped shut and he pinched the bridge of his nose. He opened his eyes and looked up at her with a benign but thin smile. "You are far too stubborn for your own good, my dear." He paused. "If they do pose a problem for me, and I'm not saying that they do, I will handle it." He lifted an eyebrow at her in a way that stated this topic was now closed, and continued insistence on dissecting it would only meet with his increasing displeasure. If she took that intent to mean that he would resort to his usual methods of resolution, that was fine with him.

True to form Himiko wasn't ready to give up her inquisition before her interests were satisfied. But one look at the glacial barrier erected by his steady gaze was enough to convince her that she was safer falling back for the time being. She pursed her lips to keep from speaking the demands she held in check, and tossed her dice as they continued the game with secrets intact.

XX

TBC


	5. A study in partnerships

XXXXX

Keeping secrets was not only second nature for Akabane; it was literally in his blood. His name, a secret unto itself, was proof enough for Himiko that any cards her erstwhile partner held would only be revealed when, and if, he chose. Not just because attempting to forcibly pry anything out of him was at best a dangerous move. Akabane's reputation was such that few were crazy enough to even think of doing so.

Himiko could admit that hidden in her heart was the lingering fear that Jackal would unleash his wrath upon her if she dared press his limits too far. She'd seen him in action, after all, and she could count on one hand, with fingers left over, the number of people who had lived after crossing him. But she also admitted to a certain theorizing that, over time, had begun to knit itself around the fear much like a pearl being layered inside its protective shell.

Eventually, that fear had taken a backseat to Himiko's intuition, and more and more, she was trusting to her instincts when it came to handling, even manipulating, Akabane.

He was aware of this, of course – he was observant and alert to a fault, as befitting his profession and his own wily nature. Himiko wasn't fooling herself on that account. The trick was to lead him on and then give free reign to anything that might follow. In this gentle guidance she hoped that he would grant her confession unbidden, and in doing so share the path of enlightenment that might also shed clarity upon her own shadowed chapters.

The night before the scheduled meeting with Akabane's source found them consolidating their plans: she at the kitchen table bottling her perfumes, he on the other side of it with her laptop, conducting yet another of his searches for whatever information he was seeking. They worked in companionable silence, the only noises in the room from Akabane's fingers ticking against the keys and the hisses and pops of corks being released or stoppered as Himiko prepared her poisons one by one.

Occasionally Himiko would look up, out of the corner of her eye, to study Akabane. He was watching the laptop screen in singular determination, neither smiling nor frowning. She found it fascinating to watch him in turn, noting the way his eyebrows slanted whenever he picked up something of interest, catching the subtle twitches of his lips if he was thinking something over. It was surprising how different he could look when he wasn't wearing his smile. His mouth had a natural downward turn that lent him a very serious appearance, especially when paired with his eyes set in steely concentration. The combination rendered him surprisingly human, and...appealing.

She'd always found his eyes bewitching. The purple secrets hidden within were about the only clue to his emotional state, made all the more beautiful by their odd shading. At first glance Akabane's pupils seemed to be a solid black, more so in dim lighting when that shadow was larger and took over most of the outer lavender limits. But if one was brave (some might say crazy) enough to get closer, it would become apparent that the black was actually a deeper, darker variation of purple, and within it yet still, an even richer ink as the plum descended into obsidian. At the heart of that darkness the pupil was almost slit-shaped, and waxed and waned like a cat's – an anomaly that was only visible in stark lighting or, in rare instances, when he was visibly disturbed.

The pattern reminded Himiko of wolves' eyes, that mesmeric electricity of the hunter engaged. Akabane was a Jackal, and he had plenty of wolfish instincts to spare – an uneasy reality that Himiko was trying to come to terms with in spite of this curious interlude that had landed the both of them together in close quarters.

They'd tentatively crafted a partnership apart from their mutual courier work, absorbing minor but crucial details gleaned from their interactions on the mundane level. It was almost comforting to know that they had similar tastes, things in common; what they differed on in terms of philosophies, they could at least grasp the concepts behind the other's adherences, if not completely understand or accept the reasons why.

This had worked well enough within their sphere as transporters. In a more intimate setting Himiko found it was wiser to proceed with extreme caution, lest she disturb a few of the comfortable illusions they each doubtless held about each other. She could appreciate that appearances held a certain significance for Akabane, as they did for her. Lady Poison, after all, was not a foolish, reckless female given to idle ponderances.

So she kept quiet and tended her potions, all the while aware of the possibility that as she was keeping tabs on him, so too was he assessing her, most likely in the clinical terms of a battlefield's context. She often wondered what it must feel like for him, always viewing everything with a detached lens. Such distance could have its benefits, she supposed. Being able to remain above the emotional fray meant that he could time his attacks with devastating intent, his skill with precision the final mark as the scalpels severed the threadbare cord separating life from death.

But too, she had also wondered, with no small amount of curiosity, whether he was ever able to feel anything beyond the taut expectation of a bloodlust. The frailness of his latent humanity, bled bare from his flesh in her home as she'd tended him, had given her a new regard for him, which she was still attempting to distill.

Himiko might have been even more intrigued if she had known what thoughts skittered across Akabane's mind while he was trying to pay attention to the contents unfolding in front of him on the laptop screen.

He wasn't looking at her, but he didn't need to. He was just as aware of her furtive peeks at him as he was of the shirt on his back – conscious, but not overly concerned, with the elusive feel of substance tracing his skin. Too, it helped that he was skilled in covert observation. Past experience had gifted him with considerable talents. He could remain aware of another's energies and commit the bulk of his focus to the work in front of him, all without having to submit to outside distractions.

So it was with no small amount of confusion and intrigue that he found his mind wandering to his would-be caretaker.

Akabane found her a fascinating entity to be acquainted with; this he had never faltered in admitting to himself, for he prided himself on his ability to accurately summarize and analyze other people according to his standards. Himiko had a will of pure steel, passion in her pride, and a fierceness in battle – both verbal and physical – unmatched by few competitors. She was just as likely to latch onto an enemy with teeth and fists flying as she was to grant useless mercy. But even in that she had a peculiar honor, one not unlike his own, and he could respect the importance it held for her, one reason why, in spite of his own interests, he refused to interfere with the course of a decision she'd set whenever they were working together. So long as her intentions avoided conflict with his own, he would readily refrain from imposing his will over hers.

She had amassed considerable skill during the time they'd known each other. She had grown faster, stealthier, stronger. Even now while they tended their separate tasks, he found a certain pleasure in being near her, an appreciation for the steady manner in which she refilled and bottled each of the deadly little bottles containing her magic. Her hands, small and tempered from meticulous labor, worked quickly and efficiently while she measured, poured, and sealed ingredients. If not for her revulsion concerning blood, she might well have made an excellent surgeon in her own right.

No. It wasn't as simple as that. Himiko wasn't afraid of blood. Nor was she sickened unduly by it – she had a higher tolerance than most humans for its messiness. He'd known her to fight straight on through injuries that were bleeding waterfalls, and he'd seen her grit her teeth through a pale calmness while she bore witness to wounds that would have sent lesser men vomiting into the nearest gutter. It was the finality of death itself, the crossing of a line drawn, that repelled her, and it was nothing that, in her humanity, he could fault her for. Nor did he hold her in lesser regard because she had made clear – repeatedly - her disapproval of his willingness to draw that line with his blade.

He didn't need her to understand his reasons. It was enough, and all that he cared, that she accepted without (much) quarrel his predilections. Though it did give him slight pause to realize that secretly, it might have been as great a thrill as any if ever she had dared challenge him on this front – and it bothered him on some unconscious level that he wasn't keen on exposing light to...the notion that he would have been truly disheartened if she had taken that risk and thus, its consequences.

Akabane sifted through the layers of windows piling up onscreen, drawing his attention back to where it ought to lie instead of upon the slender weapons of his erstwhile partner's fingertips. He had touched those hands before. Always in a professional context, of course. It never failed to impress him how hands could convey so much about a person, how deceptively light and innocent Himiko's hands could seem to one who did not know her the way he did, only to be continually refreshed by the sudden and surprising strength she could exhibit when she chose.

The gentleness in her touch as she'd overseen his slow, struggling recovery he'd expected, even come to enjoy. Such was natural from the feminine mystique. But there was something else there, a hint of what might be termed spirit, that he always sensed from her, and he would have provoked it further for the sheer devilish glee of it just to see her reaction, if not for the concern that she might overstep her own boundaries in a fit of temper and send him reeling into ruin with an ill-timed blow that he wasn't prepared to reciprocate. They had, if not an outright trust, an...understanding...between them. The least he could do was to honor that for however long he graced her home.

Which, in spite of the oddly comfortable routine they'd established at present, Akabane hoped would not be much longer. He was anxious to resume his normal activities, ones that Himiko might have been surprised to learn did not necessarily include lethal battle. He could just as easily find stimulation from nonviolent avenues – it was merely a matter of choice and his desire.

That topic brought him back to her once more. He was at a loss to grasp why she would assist him, other than to conclude that it was part of her sense of honor and obligation. She knew full well that his brush with death hadn't inspired any sudden resolve to alter his wayward path, no trite resolution to journey towards any sort of repentance. Why, then, would she choose to help him, knowing that he would only return to his usual habits?

It was a mystery Akabane had decided to put aside for want of a satisfactory answer, yet it kept returning to rub at the edges of his thoughts like a stuck grain of sand. Helping out of altruism implied caring. Caring hinted at connection, and that led towards...towards what? Something he could not – or would not – name...? But such didn't apply to him, at least he believed he had no inclinations for it...

The laptop chimed softly, a welcome return to his purpose. Akabane opened the email, expecting a reply to his query, and was annoyed but not unduly surprised to find that it was negative. Once again, another dead end.

His displeasure must have registered with Himiko, because she set down the bottle she was working on and looked at him. "No luck?"

Akabane glanced at her, then to the screen, then at her again, composing himself before he spoke. "A minor setback. It's only a matter of time."

"What are you doing, anyway? Hacking the Babylon Archive?"

They both knew she'd meant it as a joke, but even so, Akabane caught himself before he started at her words, and was further irritated with himself for being so rattled. But Himiko's words had hit closer to the truth than he'd anticipated. For a moment he debated whether or not to bother with an answer. Then a thought occurred to Akabane. Indirectly, perhaps he could prompt her into showing him another route he hadn't yet tapped.

"No." He deliberately paused. "I'm having Makubex-kun do that for me." When she looked up at him with eyes widening slightly, he said, "I require certain information concerning Kagami, and this is the best way to go about getting it without alerting him to that fact."

Himiko frowned. "Why don't you just access their system from the Other Side when you cross over? You're one of them, aren't you? The few that can bypass the great door?"

"You misunderstand my placement in the scheme," Akabane said. "It's not so simple. Would that it were." He braced for the inevitable peppering.

Himiko drew her legs underneath her as she shifted in her seat. "I never understood anything about your involvement over there. Were you one of the Trust members?" When he glanced at her, she said, "You're originally from Babylon City, aren't you?"

"I came from there, but I do not deal with the Trust factions themselves, unless you count Hakase."

"Hakase..." Then she remembered. The specialist, the strange girl in white whose mind was ages beyond her physical form, and the one behind much of the Get Backers' mysterious destiny. "She's Trust?"

"One of them. Occasionally she hires me for certain jobs."

Himiko tried to process this. "So if there are two main Trust groups, and she's one of those that were arranging for Ginji to be the lord of Mugenjou's world, and preserve it instead of the destruction that the Witch Queen prophesied...she's okay, isn't she? One of the good ones?"

Akabane raised a brow. "That depends on your definition of good. Either Trust faction has been known to engage in experiments that have questionable value. And Hakase knows what type of job I am best suited for."

Himiko held back a shiver, and tested the waters. "So which side are you on?"

He looked at her, his eyes steady with inscrutable secrets. "I am on the same side as I have always been, and will always be. My own."

Her eyes darkened at the evasive reply. "But if you have a working relationship with the specialist, why can't you just go through her instead of Makubex to get the information you want?"

"Discretion being the better part of valor, of course," Akabane said with a shrug. "A seasoned hunter doesn't prematurely startle the prey he's after, hmm? It will be all the more satisfying for me when the time comes to pay back the Observer for the nuisance he has created for me, if he knows nothing of the storm gathering at his back."

He turned his attention back to the laptop, starting up another series of communiques to send out to another possible source, and was thus caught somewhat off guard when Himiko continued. "But they know Makubex. They expect him to tap the Archive. He's done it before. Won't they take precautions against that, even with his skills?"

"Oh, I'm sure they're aware of it." He took a few minutes to finish typing out a sentence. "Very little gets by without someone up there taking notice. But even the best security system in the world can't keep out an invader who's resourceful and persistent enough."

"I didn't know you two were on such good terms."

"It's more that we understand each other's protocol." Akabane typed some more. "He wants answers and those I can grant, in spades. Makubex-kun knows this. In return he fulfills that which he knows I will expect of him, and we each are satisfied in our own little ways." He concluded the missive he'd been preparing and hit send before looking up at Himiko again. "It's all purely business. Makubex-kun has dealt with Kagami himself. His insight should be particularly valuable."

Himiko frowned again at that. "Sakura told me once, when they were putting together the IL, that she couldn't understand at first why a man like Kagami would submit to the will of a younger, less experienced leader. But she and Makubex figured it out – the only reason someone from the upper levels would do that is so they could divide and conquer through subterfuge."

Akabane nodded. "It's been a timeless stratagem for a reason. For all his teenage distress Makubex-kun is a very astute general when it comes to conducting a battle. I imagine that's part of what prompted his placement in Lower Town to begin with."

Himiko picked up an empty bottle, but did nothing with it other than to tap it gently on top of the table. "Maybe it's just me, but have you noticed that Brain Trust seems to have a thing for manipulating children? There's Makubex, of course, but others too. The Voodoo Children, like me. And my brother. And we all know about Ginji - "

"He was an anomaly they'd never intended from the start," Akabane said. "It was their fatal error in judgment that they thought they could add him to their stockpiles after he'd been saddled with an unstable demigod. Why do you think the Witch Queen slammed the gates shut? There'd already been one catastrophe to drown the City in blood; the next one might have obliterated it entirely." Something flashed behind his eyes then, but before she could ask him about it he quickly continued. "But you're right, it isn't just you. The Trust prefers children for experimental practicality. Blank slates are more malleable than adult ones."

A sickening sensation squirmed in Himiko's insides. "My brother must've known. He never wanted to talk about it with me. He just always warned me to stay away from Mugenjou because we were the hunted, the last of our lineage. But he'd never say exactly why."

She sighed and let go of the bottle she'd been tampering with, putting her head down on her folded arms. "I still wish he'd told me. Something, anything. It would've saved so much trouble. I never understood why Yamato would share with Ban, but never me."

She looked up at Akabane then, a fire dancing in her eyes. "And don't say it's an older brother thing. There's more to it than that."

"What if it was?"

Himiko scowled. "He still owed me an explanation."

He couldn't help but admire her stubbornness. "All of us are owed explanations at some time or another. A pity we don't always get what we want, isn't it?"

Himiko huffed quietly and leaned back in her chair, arms crossed against her chest. "Hah. As if you'd be content to accept a passive fate."

"You're not exactly a delicate flower yourself," Akabane pointed out, the hint of a smile tipping the edges of his lips.

"No." Himiko's mouth twisted in a parody of a smile. "I'm a hooligan. A boar. A churlish unpopular oaf."

Something in her tone piqued Akabane's interest. "What fool had the stomach to make such a statement to you?"

She looked away, a thoughtful scowl darkening her face. "Some high schooler. Probably a spoiled daddy's princess. It doesn't matter now. Just someone I met once, working a random job for Ban."

He had a feeling he knew who she meant. Extricating himself graciously from the meeting with his would-be admirer had taken considerable time and effort. "And you're going to let some stupid words from a mere child affect your entire self-concept?"

Himiko's cheeks reddened. "Of course not. It just...it reminds me of all the shit I had to wade through to become a successful agent. People still don't take me seriously. Some of them...never will."

Her eyes met his, and he was struck by the intensity of the quiet emotion she kept simmering beneath her controlled facade. Something in her...some strange...connection, felt as though it were calling to him...

He wanted to dismiss the notion outright. But he couldn't. Her personal grievances may have differed from his, but they were approaching something close to kindred, and he felt compelled to honor that. He could understand it, in a way. He'd been there himself, as a young intern, striving to do his best to prove to the elder physicians who sneered down at their less experienced peers that he was just as capable as they were. Curious, that he should recall such life and remember the feelings associated with it. He'd thought that he'd long ago severed those ties.

Himiko spoke again, her soft voice underscored by a lifelong frustration. "You can't know what that's like, being put down in so many different ways because you're considered second-class by default. Even Ban and my brother did it. They didn't always mean to. But I could feel it, when they'd talk down to me like I couldn't understand what was going on. Like I was just a dumb baby." She regarded him with a curious stare. "You're the only one who ever gave me a chance on my own merit. Well, you and Maguruma."

"I don't know. Even he can be a bit on the patronizing side once in a while," Akabane said. "If you heard half of what he says to me when it's just the two of us on assignment you'd find it a miracle that he's still alive." He paused, smiling in wry thought. "I tolerate it only because I like his company, and he's the best driver around."

"But still," Himiko said. "You never judged me on a superficial basis. Even though you could have, had every right to. Because you're..." She sighed. "You're the best. The deadliest, but still the best. Instead you let me find my own way, gain my own experience, and you still treated me like an equal partner even when I screwed up. I owe you for that."

Akabane was genuinely surprised. "For what?"

Himiko looked at him. "For trusting me. For believing in me. That means a lot to me."

He wasn't sure what to say to that. He was inexplicably touched by her confession, and he didn't know whether to feel...flattered? Rankled? Delighted? "I could say the same for you, you know. Not many would willingly work alongside a coldblooded killer," he pointed out.

Her eyes narrowed. "Maybe not so coldblooded. I've noticed. You have a...system."

Akabane's brow arched. "Honor among thieves, is that it?"

"It's still honor. That's got to count for something..."

He was still dwelling over her words when they adjourned for their nightly movie before bedtime. It had become a ritual, same as their taking meals together or practicing his physical therapy. For one so young Himiko was almost as nostalgic as he was, and among the things they'd discovered that they both liked were older movies. Akabane watched while she put a disc in the player and nodded approvingly. "I always liked that one."

"Yamato got a kick out of impersonating the lead actor for clients sometimes," Himiko said as she picked up the remote control and settled alongside him on the couch.

"Oh? Did he do the dramatic scene from _Key Largo_?_"_

Himiko grinned. "No, it was the one from _Casablanca._ And yes, he reserved it for our female clients."

"Ahh."

They were content to watch in companionable silence. At one point Akabane shifted on the couch, trying to get more comfortable. His movements drew Himiko's attention, and though she was discreet about the sideways looks she was giving him, he was at a loss to understand why she should suddenly find him so fascinating.

"Is something wrong?"

There was the briefest flash of trepidation in her eyes, but she didn't flinch from confrontation. Himiko moistened her lips as she put the forbidden into spoken form. "How did you get your scars?"

Akabane was careful not to let his surprise show. It seemed like an unusual query at first, coming directly like that, but then when he tilted his head to look at her and felt the slip of his hair against the side of his exposed neck, he realized what was showing when his shirt collar had loosened.

The mark there was the least impressive of his distinctive traits. He hadn't even obtained it in a fight; he hardly ever thought of it himself, not considering a youthful indiscretion worth dwelling on. He would have expected greater curiosity concerning the prominent stripe branding his chest, shoulder and back.

Would Himiko understand? Could she truly know what had transpired in Sodumonado? She had been there with him, once, though not during the time of transcendence. She had seen enough to grasp the underworld's concepts for herself. Even so, she did not know the darkness like he did. And sympathy was not the same as empathy, though both were anathema to him. Emotion, connection, these were hindrances anymore. Weaknesses he could not afford to indulge. To do so would invite true death.

As startled – and annoyed – as he was to discover that a part of him still existed which would have welcomed shared confession, he was too long an outsider, too much of a professional to surrender to such urges. Yet...

Himiko was a professional too. If asked, she would perhaps be more likely than anyone else to safeguard anything he entrusted her with. She had already gone above the call of duty in rescuing and reviving him, knowing full well that she could expect little by way of compensation; she had done it all for her own sense of satisfaction. Hers was a strength to be respected, even reckoned with.

His continued silence made her think that he found the inquiry offensive. Himiko folded her hands in her lap, her posture losing some of its starch. "I'm sorry. That was personal. Call it a slip of professional curiosity."

He could have cut her down with an acerbic remark. He would have done so with anyone else. But he knew the difference between morbid fascination and genuine interest, and he understood, on some instinctual level that he was reluctant to name, from which wellspring her foray into the unknown had arisen. "You would not believe me even if I did tell you," Akabane said slowly at last.

She made herself meet his eyes, and the rare glimmer of honesty there, along with the quiet tone in which he'd answered, kept the impatience and frustration at his smooth evasion from leeching back into her voice. Akabane considered her important enough to treat her seriously and she'd said as much. She would have to trust that, in his own good time, in his own way, he would permit her to cross his boundaries as he saw fit.

"Why shouldn't I believe you? You're not a liar." That was also the truth. He was sneaky, he was secretive, but never yet had he been outright dishonest.

He seemed pleased by her assessment, and a slight warmth surfaced in his gaze before it was submerged by a more common wariness. "Perhaps not. But I haven't been entirely honest with you before, either."

"You have your reasons. I don't always agree with them. But I accept that that's the way it is with you," Himiko said.

"A wise acknowledgment."

There was a stretched quiet between them, filled only by the actors' dialogue onscreen as the hero disarmed his naysayers with blunt coolness. Finally Akabane said, "Would it be enough for you if I told you that maybe someday, if the time was right, I might share that story with you?"

Himiko held back the leap of her heart and nodded.

"It's not that I don't trust you." _It's that I don't trust myself._ Akabane squelched that line of thought before it could even take root. "There are certain...factors, involved..."

Himiko felt like she'd just been granted a rare treasure. "You don't have to explain," she hastened to assure him, even though that was exactly what she would have liked most at this moment.

He sought words to convey his tangled thoughts on the matter, wondering why he suddenly seemed incapable of stating it in simple terms that left little mystery to doubt. "It's...complicated, you see..."

"I know." Himiko paused. "Fair's fair. If you're willing to share, so will I. I'll tell you some of my secrets..."

He indulged her with a calm smile. "You're not old enough to have accumulated secrets."

Her eyebrow did a sharp arc. "Oh no? I could tell you a few things that'd make even your hair curl."

It was a bold declaration from one of her tender age and could easily be seen as the brashness of such. Only the grit sparking behind her indigo gaze convinced him that she did, in fact, harbor some scintillating tales of her own. He found himself wondering what sort of a life she'd lived, that she should have experiences to tell.

He was thinking of asking her about it when she switched on him with fresh inquiry. "Akabane...why would Babylon City shut you out of the Archive when you're one of them?"

A clever one, indeed. How typical of the power of the voodoo child – an intuition that had always served her well. "You are assuming that every City dweller has access to the Archive."

For the moment, he kept the displeasure of revisiting this topic out of his voice. Something in the way she'd asked him made him think that she'd found an angle he hadn't yet touched on, and that bothered him on several levels. "What makes you think that I cannot simply research that channel if I were of a mind to do so? I told you, I want to avoid alerting the enemy."

"The system is rigged. You said so yourself." When he looked at her, she elaborated. "When we were in Sodumonado. You told me – the peoples on each succeeding level of Mugenjou can't defeat the ones who are higher above them. But who can challenge the topmost ranks? Only another Babylonian, if there's a power struggle going on and there are multiple factions vying for total control. That's why the specialist hires you, isn't it? It's her group pitted against whoever else is trying to take over."

"Divide and conquer, is that what you're saying?"

Himiko didn't flinch. "It works for a reason."

Akabane had to give her credit. All this time, when she'd been quietly providing him with the outlet he needed to do his work, she'd managed to figure out what he was doing without becoming terribly intrusive or tipping him off to her intentions. Still, there was one crucial point she hadn't yet seemed to notice, and that was what most concerned him about her apparently insatiable interest. Deciding it would be better to concede this small win in favor of protecting the larger battle at hand, he deigned to give her a reply.

"I'm sure you understand by now as well as I do that the primary culprit responsible for my convalescence in your home bears no love lost between himself and Hakase. Kagami did, after all, have a vested interest in preventing the Get Backers from achieving their goal, whereas she stood to gain quite a deal of power if it were her plan that came to fruition."

Himiko frowned. "So this is what? Revenge? As conceited a jerk as Kagami is, I can't see him going to this kind of trouble for a blood feud sparked by a rebellion that took place before he was even born. He values his own hide too much to risk getting it handed to him in a down and dirty fight. Did he really have so much resting on Mugenjou's fate?"

Akabane shrugged. "Who can say for certain. One thing I can promise you is that whatever else he is, he is most definitely an opportunist. Such men will lie in wait like spiders before pouncing on their prey."

"Ugh. Don't remind me of spiders," Himiko grumbled. "I had enough of that when I fought off Kirihito. I'm just glad that that clan came to its senses after Kabuto was defeated." She paused in thought for a moment. "Of course, Genshu Miyama had a lot to do with that. Even though he couldn't convince Jorogumo to pull away from her course in time. But he put the doubt into her heart, so that probably helped when it came time for Ginji to confront her."

She thought some more. "Made my work easier too. Miyama wanted to free all the insect clans of the Kiryuudo from their karmic curse. He asked me, before he died, to help him set them free. I kept that promise, with the altered insecticide perfume I created for him." Somber remembrance shadowed her face as she reached back for those memories.

"Hmm. Just as I thought." At Himiko's glance, Akabane continued. "Not long after the fall of Kabuto, Semimaru Kanade spoke to me of a sorceress who had created a potion to eliminate the curse in the remaining clans. He never mentioned her by name, but I always suspected it was you."

She gave him a questioning look, the movie they were indulging in now long forgotten. "Semimaru Kanade... The same headman from the seven elders? The one who commanded the forest armies of the cicada people?"

"The very same. He was most impressed with your work," Akabane added.

"So Ginji was right. You did know him." The narrowing of his eyes made her briefly rethink the wisdom of touching this subject, but Himiko decided she had nothing to lose; it wasn't as if her cohort wouldn't give her ample warning before she'd strayed too far into dangerous territory. "He said that when you two met he could sense - "

"That we'd met from before," Akabane said, his voice dipping into coolness. "Yes. I'm aware of that. Ginji-kun's altered state lent him the ability to pick up on the fluctuations in others' bodily energies, regardless of how minute those changes were. Aside from the fact that I'd been hired by Fuyuki-san to transport his lover back, that's why I went with him to Hell Valley. He was a very valuable detector for an enemy that excelled in stealth attacks."

Himiko watched him thoughtfully. She'd touched on a sensitive spot all right, and if what she'd heard from Ginji was true... "Ginji said you two weren't necessarily enemies, though."

"On this particular battlefield we were." Purple eyes speared her with cold logic. "Politics, Himiko-san, truly makes for the most unusual alliances. The rest of the Kiryuudo promised my old friend something of infinite worth to him, something he could never have otherwise obtained, if he would take up the mantle of his burden once more and join with them. As a commander and strategist in combat, he was quite important to their plan, and everyone knew it."

He nodded toward the television screen, where a fight was erupting. "We're missing the best part of the movie."

She wasn't about to give up so easily now that her interest was piqued by the tracks she'd scented, but Himiko fell silent while they turned their attention to the screen. When the ending credits began to roll, however, she tossed out her last dart. "Surely Semimaru knew what toll Kabuto's war would take, that he could cross paths with you. And you?"

She hit the stop button on the controller and looked at him. Akabane could have been a stone statue, still as he was, as he regarded her with the same chilly detachment from earlier. Finally he spoke.

"All soldiers understand the risk they take in tempting death. It comes with the intimacy as naturally as does the blood beating in their bodies. War is never won by the side that fancies itself right, Himiko-san. Only by those who are left in its wake...if they are strong enough to survive the ravage."

He reached for his cane and slowly got up, affording her a slight tip of his head. "I'd get some rest if I were you. Tomorrow is a busy day. Good night, Himiko-san."

Himiko stayed on the couch for a while after he'd hobbled away to bed, wondering at this bitterness that could maim people so. Somehow, in spite of its emotionless tone, the very cut of his voice as he'd delivered that final salvo had conveyed a lethal knowledge of sacrifices that no mortal should have. That rawness had scarred its imprint on Akabane in more ways than one, and it made her glimpse of the vision all the more disturbing.

She had a sinking feeling that Babylon City subscribed to that war creed with a vengeance.

XX

TBC


	6. Traveling by smoke

Title: Blood Oaths (ch. 6)  
Author: Amethyst Hunter  
Rating: R (violence, language, blood, all the happy fun things)  
Warnings/Spoilers: See above. Also minor bits for the Venus de Milo/Voodoo Child/Lost Time arcs.  
Disclaimer: I don't own GB or any of its glorious characters. Much like Akabane, I fic solely for my own enjoyment. Except I don't kill anybody. Well, only in print, that is. ;)  
Summary: When Akabane loses his primary weapon, Himiko tries to protect him from all the glory-seekers wanting their whack at a declawed Jackal. In his weakest hour, will Akabane learn to trust in a power greater than his own?

* * *

"You're sure you can walk all right."

Himiko was not inclined to think so. As with any recovery from traumatic physical impairment, there were good days and bad days. Today was one of the latter. Just getting from the bedroom to the kitchen had left Akabane with a paleness not natural to his usual coloring, and his legs still trembled as he moved at a slower pace than his regular sinuous stride. She wondered if he'd slept about as well as she had, after last night's discussion of old and fresh wounds. But he was determined, even as he stiffly pulled on the dress shirt and trousers she'd bought for him, saving his infamous coat, hat, and gloves for last.

"Leave it," he said when she tried again to offer him the cane after he'd finished knotting his tie. "It's too obvious."

"You mean to walk on your own all the way from here to downtown, when you can't even keep from breaking a sweat just moving from room to room?" Himiko shook her head. "I think you should take it. Dangle it off your arm for show, the contact will never know the difference."

"And then what? Twirl it about like some sort of circus performer?" Akabane scowled. "No. It's not something Jackal normally carries and the contact will know this. I refuse to ruin an important meeting over one ridiculous detail."

Himiko tightened her lips, but hooked the cane's handle over the back of a chair. She reached into her harness and pulled out a small bottle, which she pressed into Akabane's hand.

He peered at it with a frown, then looked at her. "What's this for?"

"Antidote scent. You'll need it after today. It's mostly for canceling out the effects of my other poisons, but it can also be used as a mild healing aid. I used it to keep you alive when I found you."

Akabane was about to reject that offer too, thought better of it, and reconsidered. Today was going to be a trying time, and if he were to be candid with himself about it, he was going to need all the assistance he could get.

He pocketed the little bottle in his coat and nodded. "Thank you."

"I'm ready whenever you are."

"Good. If you'll kindly bring me my hat, we can leave any time then."

Himiko went to get the infamous object of much scrutiny by both foes and fen alike, from where it was perched atop the wall hook. On her way she passed by one of the kitchen windows, and as she glanced up, letting her fingers tip apart a few of the blinds from habit, she was greeted with an unwelcome sight. "Great. My fan club is here again."

She turned around to make another remark about it to Akabane, and her smile dropped at about the same time his did. Himiko instantly knew the appearance of the surveillance team that had been following her for some time was a very ill omen, if the frigid tension snapping Akabane's body into stillness was any indication. But she'd sensed this all along, hadn't she? Now it seemed payment had come due...

He spoke, his voice quiet but chilled. "How many?"

Himiko ventured closer at an angle to the window, glad that the shading there helped to spoil any view indoors for the outsiders. She counted. "Two that I can see, but they're driving a van, so there could be more inside it." She heard the ominous rustle of coat fabric behind her. "They're from the City," she said, making it a statement as Akabane padded up to the window to have a look. She didn't miss the way his lips thinned at the sight of their stalkers, and the bad pangs she was feeling grew.

"Yes."

"What kind of threat are they?" she said, flipping a bottle of perfume into her fingers, thumb poised to pop the cork.

Akabane studied the imposition and their transport. Not top quality, but not cheap muscle either, just as Himiko had told him. Definitely a problem in any case. "None, for now. Sentinels don't act unless directed to. Their function is merely to report on our movements."

"So we can't leave the apartment," Himiko guessed sourly.

"Not without an audience knowing what we plan to do." Akabane tracked the first man's steps. He was strolling around the other side of the van now, toking on a half-dwindled cigarette. "At least we can thank our lucky stars that worse hasn't shown up yet."

"They have worse?"

Akabane took his fingers away and let the blinds fall closed. He turned away from the window and looked at her. "As of this moment there are exactly two people alive who know what's become of Doctor Jackal. How long do you think that peace will last once confirmation of my existence reaches those streets out there?"

He let her digest that for a minute while they focused again on the spies outside. "What can we do, then?" Himiko finally asked.

Akabane didn't answer. He stepped away from the window and paced through the kitchen, brows furrowed in thought. "Do you have someone you trust to watch your place?"

Himiko was confused. "Ban probably would, freeloader that he is. I'll call him right now - "

He grasped her arm before she could reach for her phone. "No, don't. They'll have tapped your line." His face darkened then. "For all we know, they may even have us miked."

"Miked?"

"Rifle microphones. They can be fitted onto anything weaponized, usually a firearm," Akabane said. "All the sentinels have to do is point them at a structure that isn't reinforced and they can listen in on whatever they want. It's possible to block them somewhat, but with these windows whatever concrete your building is made out of won't be enough to obscure conversation entirely."

He turned again to the window, nudging back a few of the blinds. The action, what there was of it, didn't seem to have changed any. The visible man was still strolling, still puffing on his cigarette, which was now a stub. He flicked it to the ground and stepped on it, twisting his foot to grind out the embers. Conscientious sort, Akabane thought derisively.

The second man was now in view. He had been sitting in the driver's seat; he exited the vehicle and ambled over to chat with his partner. They seemed jovial enough, trading commentary as the first man lit up another cigarette. They didn't appear to be in any rush.

Akabane took note of their van. Plain white, large but not overly so, without any outstanding features. It looked like a regular delivery van, which was likely why they'd chosen it. They could pass as just another business outfit dropping off goods or servicing neighborhoods.

Akabane thought it over some more. He decided that they probably weren't outfitted with rifle mikes, or other surveillance equipment. For all its high-tech capability the City often liked to utilize traditional methods. Technology was so rampant anymore that people were more aware of it while becoming less aware of the tangible world around them. Such distraction could make it easier for an enemy to approach undetected. Paranoia could be a useful weapon as well.

Either way, they had to move before the sentinels – or their superiors – did.

Akabane pulled back from the window. Himiko was looking at him, but she didn't say anything right away, and for this he was grateful. They looked at each other for several minutes, each sorting out their dilemma.

Then Himiko plucked out one of her perfume bottles. "Wait. I have an idea."

She uncapped the vial and prepared the spell, sealing it carefully inside. "Stay here. I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Where are you going? You can't leave with those men out there - "

"I'm not going anywhere." Himiko held up the perfume bottle. "But this is. Watch."

Akabane hobbled after her. Himiko stuck the perfume back in her harness and went around to her bedroom, on the other side of the building, where the sentinels presumably couldn't have full sight of their targets. She unlatched the window and opened it, pulling on the tabs that kept the screen in place, and removed this, laying it aside. "Stay put in case they sneak around the back," she told Akabane as she climbed out onto the fire escape. "If they spot just me they won't be as suspicious."

It was his turn to be confused. "What do you think you're doing? You can't ambush them, they'll be prepared for such an attack!"

"I'm not attacking them. I'm going behind their backs," Himiko replied as she clambered down the metal ladder. When she touched the ground she pulled out her bottle again – the message scent. She uncapped it and spewed the perfume along as wide a trajectory as she could. There was a light breeze in the air. Good.

She stood back and waited. Not more than a few minutes passed while the scent dispersed, and suddenly a bedraggled mutt came trotting out of the alley. Himiko let it come up to her and sniff her hand. The dog sat without her having to tell it, and waited while she prepared a new message perfume. This one she sealed and offered to the dog. The animal gently took the little bottle between its teeth, chuffed agreeably at her, and jogged back into the shadows from where it had materialized.

"Mind telling me what the devil that was all about?" Akabane demanded once Himiko had climbed back up the fire escape.

She looked decidedly smug as she crawled through the open window. "Message perfume works on animals too, just not the same way as humans. But it'll do for our purposes. I basically told him to get Shido Fuyuki. He can watch my place while we're gone."

Akabane stared at her, duly impressed with her subterfuge. "Bloody brilliant of you, I must admit."

"Thanks." She shut the window without replacing the screen and dusted off her palms on her thighs. "Now what do we do?"

"Pack an overnight bag. You may not wish to return here for a while."

She looked at him, but he didn't elaborate further, so she went to do as he said. On a hunch, she made sure that some of her most powerful perfumes – and the recipe book she used to make them – were tucked securely in the small backpack she put together.

When she was done ten minutes later she went looking for Akabane. She found him sitting hunched over on her couch, head bowed as if in meditation – or exhaustion. "Should we call Maguruma and get him to help us escape?"

"No. Call emergency and report a fire in the building."

"But there's no fire - "

Akabane looked up with a pointed gleam in his eye, aimed at Himiko's perfume harness. "There will be."

Not long after this discussion the Babylonians keeping watch outside were finally pleased to see some activity at the building they had been assigned to stake out. Their interest was short-lived, however, when the fire trucks and ambulances screaming into the yard proved to have nothing to do with their quarry and instead went after the large plume of smoke billowing from the backside of one of the empty offices.

The sentinels fell back to a side street, having been herded off by several arriving police cruisers as law enforcement quickly corralled the scene from any gawking bystanders. While the firefighters determined that no human lives were endangered and set about dousing the flames – arson investigators would later find that the blaze originated from some sort of incendiary chemicals – the sentinels hired to stalk Doctor Jackal and Lady Poison, in the guise of detectives, entertained themselves chatting up a few of the local residents in an effort to learn what little they could about certain people who lived in the affected building.

In all the commotion of sirens and spraying hydrant water, voices barking orders through bullhorns and radios, personnel racing back and forth from their respective jobs to the scene, or to convey messages from their bosses to officials awaiting word, no one noticed a young woman with a backpack and a tall man in black slip as phantoms through the haze of smoke-filled sunlight.

* * *

TBC


	7. Trial by fire

Title: Blood Oaths (ch. 7)

Author: Amethyst Hunter

Rating: R (violence, language, blood, all the happy fun things)

Warnings/Spoilers: See above. Also minor bits for the Venus de Milo arc.

Notes: "Kodomo-gunjin" means "little soldier."

Disclaimer: I don't own GB or any of its glorious characters. Much like Akabane, I fic solely for my own enjoyment. Except I don't kill anybody. Well, only in print, that is. ;)

Summary: When Akabane loses his primary weapon, Himiko tries to protect him from all the glory-seekers wanting their whack at a declawed Jackal. In his weakest hour, will Akabane learn to trust in a power greater than his own?

* * *

"This is as far as you go," Akabane told Himiko when they'd come to the dock warehouse where the supposed contact was to have met up. Despite the obstacle posed by their stalkers, they were right on time for the meeting. "I would like for you to wait outside while I conduct my business."

Himiko tugged on her backpack, making sure it was secure, and started to accompany him inside the building anyway. "You said I could come with you."

He held up a gloved hand. "I told you, I don't need supervision." At the fierce glower that was sparking in her eyes, Akabane said, "You've done your job. Now let me do mine. If you come in there with me, the contact is going to be upset because he was under the assumption that I'd be arriving alone. If he leaves, I won't get what I came here for and that won't make me very happy. And when I don't get what I want..." He purposely trailed off before speaking again. "Well, you won't like that, now, will you?"

Himiko's glare subsided some. Slowly she shook her head, reminded of his pursuits.

"Then leave me, please," he said, not unkindly.

She stepped aside from the door, allowing him to pass.

"Thank you. I'll come back for you once I've finished."

Akabane went to enter the building. As he put a hand on the door's lever Himiko suddenly prompted him. "Jackal..."

He looked up at her.

"Remember the signal," Himiko said, her voice quiet but firm. She, too, would not be denied.

Akabane studied her. Times like these, he was never entirely sure whether to be reassured or annoyed by her stubborn insistence, her strength of will. The transporters had developed a code to use with one another in the event more thorough communications weren't possible, to avoid tipping off an enemy, or notify partners of impending action. Their planning had saved each others' necks on more than several occasions, which was just one of many reasons why they – No-Brakes, Jackal and Lady Poison – were considered the best couriers in the business.

The signals Akabane and Himiko had worked out weren't difficult: she used her potions and he relied on his scalpels. As he was presently beyond the use for this alarm system – again, Akabane silently consigned Kagami to the lowest depths of hell for this dratted inconvenience – his intention had been simple strategy, counting on his familiar black shrouds of hat and coat to help bluff his way through any possible outbreaks. Himiko might have suspected this, but she had no way of knowing for sure, and Akabane wasn't about to tell her the truth.

It was this very dilemma that was the real reason he didn't want her coming with him into the warehouse, why he'd balked when she'd first demanded that he cancel this meeting. Akabane hadn't, as he'd just said, told the contact that he would be coming alone. But in this world, a fable of Doctor Jackal's stature showing up to a meet with an attendant in tow, regardless of how powerful that person was in his – or her – own right, might suggest that his own power was actually lacking, that he could be easier prey for the taking.

Akabane wasn't ready to provoke any fights until he had that table tilted back solidly in his favor. To do so, he must get back that which he'd lost. To do that, he must play a role to its hilt – the reaper reborn. Such a specter would never have relied upon anything or anyone else for support.

He turned the lever and entered the warehouse. The door squeaked on its hinges, reminding him of a similar entrance on a past mission. Stepping into the underbelly of Mugenjou hadn't been half as important to him as this undertaking. Although it had had its moments...

He drew his mind back to the center of focus, willing himself to fall into the habitual actions that were his hallmark. Tips of the hat, eyes ever-watchful, senses sharply attuned to each flutter of air, every wisp of dust or sunlight, marking the places hidden in shadow, areas where enemies could hide. Here, then, was comfort in familiarity, the routine of old coming to him as naturally as a mortal drew breath.

He met the first watchman halfway through the building. With his bright green Mohawked hair and patchwork of tattoos, the guy looked more like a street punk than an informant, but appearances were often deceiving. Akabane didn't miss the way the man's fingers slid over the baton in his belt in a sinuous offhanded caress. The weapon wasn't just for show – here was a seasoned fighter, and were he in his usual form Akabane wouldn't have minded testing the other's ability.

"You lose your way, friend?" The watchman grinned, exposing a pair of gold-capped incisors.

Akabane stayed put, offering nothing more than a cold glare. "I'm here to see Uta-san."

"Don't know who that is." The watchman's grin flickered out, and he advanced slowly on Akabane. "Wires ain't allowed back here."

He meant that undercover officers attempting to sting his boss with a hidden police micro-recorder would be dealt with on the spot, most likely by being dumped into the bay. Any underworlders with business to conduct would have to submit to examination in order to obtain the face to face meeting they desired. Akabane certainly wasn't outfitted with such a device, but he had no intention of permitting unwelcome contact. Having anticipated this snag, he'd concocted a backup. He stepped forward and let the kitchen knife's tip peek just enough through his fingers so that the watchman could see it.

"Doctor Jackal needs no wires." He made his voice as cold and haughty as he could, which wasn't too difficult. "Uta-san is expecting me. I suggest that we not keep him waiting."

The threat worked. The watchman, no stranger to infamous reputations, had backed a healthy distance away from Akabane as soon as the blade flashed into view. "Follow me."

Akabane was glad for the cover of shadows that dappled their path through the warehouse. He could feel beads of sweat dotting the back of his neck and top of his forehead, but he refused to swipe at them. Already the pain of excess movement was gnawing at his body. He surreptitiously felt in his coat pocket for the vial Himiko had given him and thumbed off the cork. Pretending a yawn of indifference, he palmed the vial up to his face and let cool relief fill his sinuses. The pain withdrew into a tolerable ache and he slipped the bottle back into his pocket, recapping it.

They went through a series of short corridors and then came to a tall staircase. Above was an enclosed room with two-way windows. Akabane cursed inwardly when he saw the stairs. He was thankful, again, that he'd accepted the antidote perfume from his erstwhile partner.

Green Mohawk stopped ahead of him and made a motion with his leather cuff-studded arm. "Meeting's in there."

"Very good." Akabane forced a calm smile. "Shall we, then?"

A shiny grin reappeared, less friendly than before. "After you."

He'd have preferred not to climb the stairs with this degenerate at his back, but refusing outright might have triggered suspicion. Instead, he shrugged as if to say it was fine, then as he was about to pass by he locked eyes with the watchman and smiled ice. "You needn't worry about a little backstabbing on my part. I like to see my opponents' faces when I kill them."

Stung by the insinuation that he was afraid, the other man's face turned ruddy. He spat a foul curse and shoved past Akabane, stomping up the stairs without a single backwards glance to see where the other was in proximity to his own heels.

Somewhat amused by this display of temper, Akabane took his time, doing his best to make it appear as though he had all the time in the world and that they were lucky he chose to grace his hosts with his presence. In reality each step sent a jab of discomfort along his legs and up his back. He dared not rely on the guardrail for support, much though it would have helped.

He met the sulking watchman at the top, by the office door that was marked PRIVATE – STAFF ONLY. "In there," the other man growled with a jerk of his thumb, and rapped on the door.

A serpentine voice answered. "Come in."

The watchman opened the door. "Uta-san. Your appointment." He paused deliberately, then added, "Doctor Jackal." He shot Akabane a wary glare, then retreated to what he felt was a safer corner of the office. Evidently he ranked high enough to be allowed to stay.

The boss himself was in conference with another rough-looking enforcer, but when he heard who had come to call on him he sat up straighter in his chair. Akabane didn't miss the way the two men exchanged glances, but he said nothing, letting his eyes trail the second henchman as he left the office without saying anything – though he did give Akabane as wide a berth as possible.

Uta-san – the only name by which Akabane knew him, and the only one he would ever give to those he did business with – looked more like a banker than an underworld figure. At least, he would have, if his hair hadn't been slicked back with a gallon of gel. He had narrow, mean eyes and a nervous tic that made his lips twitch in a parody of a smile. He got up and gestured to a chair on the other side of his desk. "Ah. Welcome. Can I get you any refreshments?"

His voice was calm and quiet, but he was being neither friendly nor polite. Uta-san wasn't known for his kindly demeanor. He was, however, a valuable source of information, and custom dictated that he observe niceties only enough to avoid kindling bad blood between himself and his guest. Akabane wasn't in the mood to quibble over manners, however much the lack thereof offended him.

"I'm fine, thank you." Not true – he would have liked to have taken another whiff of the antidote perfume after those stairs, but here, under closer observation, he couldn't afford to do so. Akabane ignored the chair being offered and did his best to lean nonchalantly against the wall. "I believe you have something for me."

"Only if you have something for me." Uta-san grinned then, an unsettling expression when paired with the ruthless black gleam of his eyes.

Akabane met his gaze, unsmiling. "Payment will be tendered upon inspection of the pending information. _If _I am satisfied," he stressed.

Uta-san's eyes narrowed. But he knew better than to press the issue, with this agent. He eased back into his leather chair, picking up a pen to chew idly on. "Moriko is fetching the dossiers you requested now. I think you will find the material to your liking well enough."

Akabane didn't reply. He made to adjust his hat, another thing he was thankful for. The wide brim shadowed most of his face from immediate view and let him covertly size up the scenario. The pie-shaped slit in it was something he'd never thought he'd be thankful for, having sustained that damage in a past fight with Kagami, but word on the street had it that people found him twice as intimidating with it. With this singular view he could observe without granting a clue as to his own thoughts.

The office was small but not discomfiting. Next to Uta-san was a half-opened window. The view from the dusty panes suggested little else besides another warehouse nearby. On the other side of the desk was a short cabinet, upon which was a coffeemaker that burped once in a while. Neither Uta-san nor his underling seemed inclined to partake of the contents, which resembled stale automotive oil rather than an actual consumable beverage. Even if he had wanted something to drink, Akabane wouldn't have touched the sludge.

No one spoke for several minutes. Then the door to the office opened, and the second man, Moriko, reappeared holding a briefcase. He flicked an uneasy look at Akabane before scooting over to his boss and plopping the case onto his desk. Moriko stepped around and stood on the other side of his boss, along with Green Mohawk, the two of them obedient guard dogs ready for further command.

With practiced hands Uta-san pulled the case closer and slowly unlatched it. He turned it around so that Akabane could see inside. "As you requested, Doctor. The latest City news, hot off the presses." He chuckled softly, a curdling sound that was shared in muffled increments by his two pets.

Akabane tilted his head, peering at the prize within. He approached the desk, noting how the henchmen shied away and keeping them in the corner of his gaze. There were two folders in the case, both slender and plain but for the malevolent symbol embossed in black on their covers: a pyramid with an eye in its center, above the curving bowl of a crescent moon. This was an official emblem of Brain Trust, which meant that however the information had been gotten, it hadn't come painlessly. Akabane picked up the top folder and opened it, giving the documents a cursory check. What he wanted was patchy and would need to be pieced together carefully, but there was no question it was legitimate material. He recognized several signatures from Trust members he'd dealt with or heard of.

The second thug spoke up. "Kanno says he heard rats on the roof again, boss. Damned things keep tripping off the alarms."

Indeed, even now they could all hear the slight scratching of movement outside, near the window. Odd, that, Akabane thought, for the scraping sounded a little too heavy to be made by vermin. Then again, he'd been to places where the rodents were large enough to give bulldogs an inferiority complex.

Uta-san tossed his half-chewed pen into a cupholder on the desk with an irritable sigh. "Do I look like an exterminator? Put out more traps if you have to." He looked at Akabane. "Well, Doctor? I trust everything is satisfactory?"

Akabane replaced the folder in the case and latched it shut. "It will do."

He started to pick up the case when Uta-san rose and placed his hand on it. "It's not yours yet. If it meets with your approval, perhaps you'd consider a generous donation to my organization."

Akabane looked at him. "How charitable?"

Uta-san didn't blink. "You tell me, Doctor. It cost me three of my best men to obtain that documentation." A slow wiggle of a tic-induced smile. "You don't have very many friends out there, do you?"

Akabane razored him with a look of his own. "None may call death a friend, but that is not your concern. State your price."

Uta-san's smile slipped into thinned displeasure. He named a figure that, while steep, wasn't wholly unexpected, as befitting the expense he'd been put to as a result of its gathering. When Akabane agreed, he snapped his fingers at Moriko. "Get me the ledger for accounts payable."

The pockmarked henchman moved around him to the bookcase at the front of the room. While he was thumbing through binders, Uta-san flipped open his laptop and began typing a series of instructions one-handed. "The double-sided sword of the electronic age, hmm, Doctor? Computers are supposed to eliminate excess paperwork, yet I find that they create twice as much of it."

Akabane had little sympathy for the man's woes. He focused on the screen. Displayed was a transfer link for depositing secured funds.

Moriko came to the desk holding a fat blue binder. Something about the way he clutched it in his pudgy fingers, or perhaps it was the way he kept shifting his glance to his boss, instantly set Akabane's nerves on edge. He checked the first watchman in his peripheral vision; that man was standing over by the coffeemaker, one hand looped partially in his pocket, the other at his side. The affected pose did nothing to appease his concern.

Eager to conclude his business and get out of here Akabane nodded at Uta-san. "If you are ready to conduct the transfer..."

A flicker of something – perhaps it was only the light - reflected in a mirror hanging opposite the window made him pause. He was sure he hadn't seen what – or who - it might have appeared to be. Akabane was careful to keep his focus on Uta-san, even as he surreptitiously double-checked the green-haired enforcer. That one was still there, not making any motion. Still, his unease deepened. The man could be simply resting against the cabinet, awaiting his next assignment...

Uta-san cleared his throat. "Yes? The source number?"

Akabane gave him the code for the account he used when withdrawing money specifically for transports. On occasion a mission required that he incur some expenditures, so he kept only what he needed in this fund.

Uta-san began typing in the information. As he started to input his own account's reception his face suddenly twisted up in revulsion. "Of all the – damn it, Moriko, didn't I tell you to quit burning those blasted sandwiches in my microwave? Amida, but they stink!"

Moriko's expression was slightly less sour than his master's. "I didn't heat nothing in here, boss. Smells like something from outside."

The burn of strong fumes hit everyone's nose and quickly saturated the room. Akabane felt a spike of alarm at recognizing the terribly familiar scent. No, it couldn't be -

He turned to the window at about the same time Moriko was, and they both caught a glimpse of something far too large to be a rat darting out of view, and then Akabane heard the unmistakable whisper of movement where none should be -

Instinct propelled him to action; he flicked out his adopted knife into his hand even as he summoned all his reserves of energy and lunged to the other side of the room to avoid the coming attack. Shock at seeing Himiko defy his order to stay put slowed his movement and the blast from the first henchman's shotgun clipped his side above the right hip, sending him sprawling into the corner. Akabane had no chance to process the pain because the world around him was erupting into a hurricane of fire from gun and flame alike.

He was able to avoid the shot that Moriko aimed at him, since the second man had pulled his pistol from within the binder and fired it a second after his comrade scored his. The bullet plowed into a space a few feet from Akabane's head, but by that point he was bulldozing into the first man, concentrating on bringing him down instead of worrying about the lack of a weapon – or the tongues of fire licking at his own heels. The henchman already had his weapon cocked by the time Akabane got to him, but as the two men struggled the gun discharged just as Akabane managed to shove its end away from his chest. The spray missed Moriko, who dove for safety before he could take sight at Akabane's back. He held his fire, trying to peer through the smoke that had begun billowing from where the poison perfume had ignited something in the room.

Uta-san had no such hesitance. He drew a weapon of his own and shot into the fray. More fire blossomed from out of thin air, splaying its deadly fingers upwards and into the ceiling. With vision fast fading in the wake of this spreading demon, neither side could gain the upper hand, even as Akabane struck at the man trying to pummel him with the butt of the empty gun. At his boss's urging, Moriko trained his gun on the struggling figures he could make out through the maelstrom and pulled his trigger in rapid succession, and the room exploded into a fireball.

Something had gone horribly wrong with the flame perfume. Both Akabane and the first man were thrown backwards from the force of heat surging into the room as flames burst into mushrooming pillars. The shotgun-wielder was dead, hit in the face by a stray bullet, while Akabane was pitched into the bookcase, knocking it onto himself as he collapsed on impact. A good thing, too, for the cover it provided spared him from the worst, as the next thunderous blast came when Moriko spotted movement through the blaze and opened fire.

Akabane heard screaming; he couldn't tell whether it was the henchman or Uta-san. One of them got to him and started dragging the ruined bookcase off of his shoulders. Pain was momentarily erased by the rush of anger at having been double-crossed by Uta-san, and he had enough breath to crawl out from beneath the weight of the bookcase as soon as it lifted, before the air was sucked out of him by the all-consuming fire gobbling up everything it could touch in the room. He had just enough presence of mind to feel for the kitchen knife, still attached to his wrist by the string he'd tied it with, grasped it and reached out with his other bloodied hand to claw a handful of shirt and haul the thug in for a sound filleting. If he had to go down, by God he'd take at least one of the bastards with him.

Hands, not rough or large, slapped over the bottom half of his face, and suddenly he could breathe air, if only briefly, and the realization that he was being helped, not harmed, made him stop short of jamming the blade into the person's neck. When he looked up he saw indigo eyes, one of which bore a star beneath it, meeting his.

He held onto Himiko's arm as he kicked loose from the last of the wreckage and grabbed for his hat, and then she was helping him up, guiding him through the storm. How she was able to bear the tempest was no mystery. She had trained for years in the art of making and using poisons. She knew how best to avoid their damages – and how to administer them to their most potent effect. They were to the door of the office now, and though the additional oxygen sent the fires spiraling into greedy paroxysms he tore it open so they could escape the perfume's final immolation.

Akabane felt Himiko stiffen beside him and immediately sensed wrongness. He seized her and spun to one side as the crack of a pistol's slug split a hole in the side of the trim around the opened door. Through an orange-red haze he could see Uta-san, his face blackened by soot and made darker still by his thwarted fury, poking his arm out from under his desk where he'd taken cover. He had the muzzle fixed squarely on them, and there was nowhere left to run.

Akabane turned and angled his body so that he, and not Himiko, would take the bullet, but she suddenly slipped down away from him and pushed him backwards so hard he lost his balance. He stumbled into the guardrail behind and the wood snapped apart. He caught himself from toppling over and scrambled to get to Himiko before Uta-san could. He reached her right about the time she flung a bottle that she'd yanked from her harness at their would-be executioner, and in the same second she was bolting back toward him, wrapping her arms around him and screaming for him to jump.

In that instant he knew how the enforcers had inadvertently created this catastrophe. The flame perfume wasn't to blame. She'd used its infinitely deadlier cousin, an explosive poison so unstable only her brother had ever been able to master its powers, and the slightest chemical reaction or trigger – including the discharge of a firearm – could propel the hellfire beyond all control.

All this and more flashed through his mind but Akabane paid these thoughts no attention. Ignoring the rage of protest from his battered body he held onto Himiko and the two of them leaped from the broken stair railing.

He could feel the streams of something cool swirl over them even as a huge plume of intense heat roared above their descent. Akabane had no idea what perfume Himiko had deployed this time but it seemed to offer some protection from the blaze tearing away at their clothes and searing their skin. He folded her under his arms and twisted as they dropped, managing to land without crushing her or unduly injuring himself, though they tumbled across the floor.

More explosions rocked the area and he tried to get up, hurry them both out of this place before it burnt to a crisp and buried them in its ashes, but Himiko pulled him back against the cement, holding tight to him while tucking her head against his chest as she thrust another bottle overhead. Perfume flared from this and enveloped them in a whoosh of current, effectively blocking the sea of fire that swarmed them like a horde of enraged bees.

Terrible ribbons of bright orange streaked by alongside the boiling black smoke they generated in their rampage. The wide brim of his hat shielded their faces, but the coolant perfume could only last so long before it gave out, and when it did they were cooked. Akabane was racking his mind for a plan when he felt Himiko's arm slacken around him, and he rolled and pinned her, thinking that she meant to try and brave the inferno on her own.

"I can get us out of this!"

He realized that she was taking out yet another perfume with her free hand. He let up and she shoved the other bottle at him to hold while she brought the new potion up to her lips and took a gulp of its scent. Suddenly Akabane found himself jerked to his feet and hauled at an impossible clip through the burning warehouse.

"Are you mad!?"

She squeezed his wrist viciously as if to confirm that, but Akabane wasn't about to argue further. If the acceleration perfume boosted strength as well as speed, it was a godsend for them, even if it was all he could do to keep up with her while they raced to freedom. The pain was coming in deep waves now, not just from the wound he'd sustained from the henchman's shotgun but also from having spent too much physical effort during the fight. His feet barely touched the ground most of the time, and he had to lean on her as she half-dragged, half-carried him out of there.

The coolant perfume sputtered out before they'd found an exit, but they had escaped the fire's core and the risk of being singed was now much less than the risk of suffocating from smoke inhalation. Himiko had already taken two hits of perfume and a third would tax her body beyond its limits. Despite the threat, she raised the bottle one more time, prepared to take that chance.

Akabane wasn't. He ripped the bottle out of her hand and pointed her toward a set of double doors he'd seen. "There!"

She huffed wordlessly but took off in that direction, aided somewhat by him when he dug for energy he hadn't thought possible and found enough for a solid sprint. Together they kicked apart the doors and scrambled into a clean, bright light of deliverance from fire's wrath.

* * *

"How bad is it?" Himiko reached for him as he bent over, grasping his injured side.

Akabane shook his head and pushed her away, losing his tenuous grip on his hat, which fluttered to the ground like an oversized moth swatted down in mid-flight. When she tried again to help him, he gave her a harder shove, and that sparked her anger.

"Jackal, let me see it!"

"It's fine," he snapped at her through clenched teeth, trying not to breathe too heavily from the strain of using up his energy. He could feel blood sticking on his lip, and streaming down his side from the shotgun wound, but without looking at it he couldn't be sure about the extent of the damage, and he was loath to risk appearing needy in front of Himiko. He studiously ignored the not-so-subtle taunt at the back of his mind that he'd already blown any credible invincibility when he'd ended up in her care in the first place.

"Blast...winged me. I can patch it...easily enough," he muttered, hoping that was the truth. Sewing up one's own scrapes was one thing; performing more in-depth surgery was another, even considering his prodigious skill.

Himiko looked like she doubted him but she held her tongue for the moment. Her expression, however, said everything that needed to be said, although Akabane ignored it.

What they could see of the ongoing action they watched from a somewhat distant alleyway that they'd stumbled into for shelter, while fire trucks continued to battle the wildfire engulfing what was left of Uta-san's warehouse. Both transporters were soot-stained and tattered, their clothes left in considerable ruin, and they reeked of smoke, but at least they remained decently covered, and thanks to the coolant perfume neither of them had suffered any burns worse than what might be gained from touching a hot stove burner.

It was to these minor injuries that Himiko next turned her attention. She went to the smoking overnight bag she'd torn off and flung aside moments ago and gingerly examined it. It too had seen its share of damage, but was still mostly intact. More importantly, while its contents were uncomfortably hot to the touch, they were relatively spared any destruction. Himiko quickly pulled on the steaming zipper to open the pack, grimacing and flicking her fingers as she let go of the burnt tab. She pulled out a bottle whose cork was shriveled and blackened, and began dabbing drops of an opaque liquid onto the red welts striping her arms and legs, reserving most of it for her right arm, which bore the worst of the burns.

Akabane paid little notice to her, leaning his head against the brick wall behind him and closing his eyes while he tried to stay on his wobbly feet. The pain in his body was singing sirens almost as loud as those from the firefighters' engines, and he struggled to blot out the accursed sensations while he tried to sort through what had just happened. Setup. He'd been conned, set up by Uta-san, but who could know that he was vulnerable; no one besides the young woman next to him knew of his predicament, and even she didn't have the full story -

Cool moisture dribbling onto the back of his wrist interrupted his thoughts. Akabane opened his eyes to see Himiko smearing a liberal amount of potion onto a splotch of red, and he realized most of the glove on that hand had been burned off.

He peeled away the remainder, noting both the pink-shaded skin and the amount of blood coating the ragged remains of his other glove, where he'd been holding it against his gunshot wound. The hand was singed uncomfortably, but no real damage was done. He flexed his fingers. A little stiff, but otherwise fine. The blood on his other hand was bright red, not dark, and when he gave the wound above his hip a brief glance he saw that it was trickling, not gushing. Also a good sign – nothing vital had been hit.

Akabane felt around in his pocket for the vial of antidote perfume but came up empty when he realized the fire had burnt holes in his coat, including the pockets. Most likely the little bottle had been lost in their escape. "You don't happen to have any more of that antidote handy, do you?" he coughed, wanting to rid his mouth of the acrid taste of smoke.

He hadn't expected a spare, but to his surprise and relief Himiko reached into the pack again and brought out a fresh bottle. She handed it to him without a word and went back to putting the other potion on their burns. It smelled like a mixture of aloe and mint, and was likewise as cooling. Akabane uncapped the antidote bottle and all but buried his nose in it, sighing deeply when he felt the pain take the sharpest of its teeth out of his hide.

"Do you think anyone survived?"

The question seemed so ridiculous to him that at first he thought he didn't hear it. When he caught Himiko looking at him, he stopped inhaling the antidote and stared at her.

"We did."

Akabane would have taken another whiff of the healing scent, but she spoke again. Her voice was quiet, devoid of emotion.

"You didn't use our signal."

Akabane glanced at her again. He thought he had a suitable reply to that, started to say it, and then remembered what hadn't survived the disaster. Damn it! He hissed wordless fury instead and jerked a fist back against the wall, wincing and growling louder when the movement caused a flare-up of pain along his arm and side. He ignored Himiko's targeting stare and ripped off his charred tie, wrapping and tying it around his waist to try and keep his bleeding wound from leaking any more. Not the best bandage, but it would have to do.

"Jackal." Frustration wasn't long in entering her voice. "Jackal, that Uta guy's - "

"Most likely the right size for a memorial urn by now, and good riddance to him, the treacherous bleeder!" Anger at his own carelessness over not having thought to save the briefcase and its precious contents gave Akabane focus, helped him keep from toppling over in exhaustion when that was exactly what he most wanted to do at this point. "All that trouble and for nothing but another hole in my hide, the last wretched thing I need, and you have the cheek to tell me I ought to have worried about a signal - " He broke off and turned the full force of his glare on her. "I told you to stay and wait for me!"

Eyes like ocean's tempest regarded him with grit from within a grubby-dusted face, one that normally would have been quite pretty to look at under more hospitable circumstances. "Lucky for you I didn't, or they'd be sweeping up what's left of you along with those enforcers!" Himiko shot back, stuffing her burn salve back into the bag.

"If you hadn't interfered I would have had things under control - "

"Oh, I'd say you did a great job, if you're missing only one chunk of flesh instead of your whole head - "

"No thanks to you! What were you thinking, using that explosive perfume when you know how dangerous it is - "

"It was less dangerous than what would've happened if they'd found out you don't have scalpels anymore!"

They stopped yelling at each other as soon as Himiko's words hit like a blast of ice water. Akabane felt the bottom of his stomach drop. His throat worked noiselessly for a few seconds as he searched for words, and he couldn't finish them before she cut him off. "You dare think that I - "

"When I found you at Mugenjou," she blurted, her eyes narrowing as equal parts dread and fascination suffused her tone. "I've known it since then, I think. All that blood loss, and I remember seeing you try to make a knife and it came out as a puddle of goo instead - "

A long silence stretched between them like a thread pulled taut. "One scalpel," Akabane snarled at last, holding up a finger. "Of course it was malformed, given the attack I'd just taken! I still have - "

"Why didn't you use the rest?"

Prudence warred with temper as he fought back the rising boil of wrath in his chest. She stood before him, her fists curled and chin jutting forward in the usual confrontational stance he'd seen her assume whenever she was sufficiently infuriated to challenge someone's dismissal. He'd never imagined that she'd be foolish enough to try it with him. "I told you, I wanted to handle this my way. It wouldn't have served any purpose if I'd charged in there and mowed everyone down before accomplishing my goal. Thanks to your meddling I lost the damned information!"

"Thanks to me your life was saved! Again!" Himiko fairly bristled with righteous upset. "Pros always back each other up, no matter the circumstances - " she held up a hand to stop him from interrupting - "and when I was tracking you, I overheard Uta's thugs talking to each other about how their boss was going to double-cross you when you were distracted!"

She stepped closer and grabbed his hand, the one still holding the antidote scent. "Take a breath before you fall over."

"I'm fine," Akabane growled, twisting his arm away from her. But he lifted the bottle to his face anyway to banish the spell of dizziness threatening to undermine him.

"Not when you can't use your normal weapons," Himiko said tartly. "And whatever you got from Uta, it's not lost."

Startled, Akabane looked at her. "But the case was - "

She shook her head. "Slipped in and hosed it with corrosive right after you went down." She withdrew a handful of crumpled, slightly singed papers from inside what was left of her blouse, waving them in front of him. There was no mistaking the Babylonian seal on the topmost one.

A jumble of conflicting thoughts spun inside him that he wasn't sure he wanted to examine. Akabane resisted the urge to grab at the documents. He made his voice as cold as possible, dispensing with all semblance of politeness. "Give them to me."

Himiko didn't move. "First I want my due."

He could have throttled her. He took a step towards her. She took a step back. But she didn't waver or flinch. She kept their gazes locked. Hers, rebellious; his, seething.

"Your due," Akabane said slowly, each syllable frozen in ice, "is that I don't rend you limb from limb for your insolence. Give me those papers. Now."

Himiko held on to her prize and pressed the case. "Admit the truth. You can't use your scalpels because you bled them all out in my bathtub. That's what you've said before, right?" She was breathing almost as strong as he was, and it wasn't necessarily from her use of acceleration scent. "'Unexpectedly difficult fights cost precious blood.' Blood's where the scalpels come from. That's why you dropped out the night we first met Ban and Ginji." She paused, the air of finality hanging heavily between them. "I knew it. You _couldn't_ signal me if you needed backup. So I followed you."

Thereby sparing him death's embrace for the second time, bless – or curse – her stubborn spirit. Akabane bit back an angry retort and begrudgingly capitulated to the latter half of her demand. "I suppose...an appreciative acknowledgment of your...assistance...could be in order..." He moved closer and held out his hand. "Now. If you don't mind."

Still, she withheld them from his reach. "And the scalpels?"

"Lady Poison," Akabane growled, his voice roughened from smoke inhalation and ambition denied. Another step...if only he could just summon the strength, and he'd be able to seize what he wanted, and maybe even have a bit of momentum left to yank this incorrigible female over his bent knee and teach her a lesson she'd not soon forget -

"Come and get them." She squashed the papers in her fist and took a few more steps backwards, the defiance in her face gleaming like a beacon as she held them up. "If you're so sure of your power whip a blade on me and take what you came for!"

If she were operating as his cohort and he held no particular fond regard for her, he almost certainly would have killed her for this challenge. If she were a man and also not his partner, he definitely would have killed her. As it was Akabane felt himself teetering dangerously close to the edge of that last part, with red haze, not all of it blood, clouding his vision. _You'll never know how fortunate you are, dear clever girl,_ he thought as a part of him, in spite of himself, was perversely grateful that she'd roused his rage. It helped drive back the pain further still.

He drew on the last remains of strained patience now to quell himself from lashing out. There was no help for it. He would have to make the best of a cover blown. He needed that paperwork too badly, if he had any snowball's hope in the proverbial depths of regaining his power.

"How did you know?" he finally asked her.

Himiko watched him like a rabbit gauging its chances of dashing to safety. "Your fingers twitch a certain way. Right before your knives come out," she said at length. "I've noticed. From watching you on missions. I saw you pull a knife to defend against that creep with the gun...but it wasn't a scalpel." She paused again. "I wondered where my paring knife went. I didn't think I'd misplaced it..."

And observant to a fault, naturally, as befitting a sorceress of her pedigree, Akabane thought irritably. He lifted his hand and wasn't surprised to see that the kitchen knife he'd pilfered from her drawer was absent, either torn off during the fight or burnt away in the fire. Even the string that had tethered it to his wrist was gone.

He was surprised, however, when Himiko suddenly came up to him and handed over the papers. Not expecting an instant surrender, he stared at them for a second, tentatively reaching out his hand only when she shook them at him.

"Well?"

He snatched the Babylon files and gave them a quick look to see how much information had survived. Everything still looked in order, so he crammed them into the one front pocket of his coat that hadn't been eaten by flames. "Well what?"

She zipped up her backpack and slipped it on. "What are we going to do now?"

Akabane glanced back at the emergency crews, still dousing resistant flames with belching hose after hose of water. It would take them a while yet before they could enter the ground zero proper to sift through the smoldering wreckage, and by the time any lurking Babylon sentinels had a chance to pick over the warehouse's carcass themselves, it would be close to darkfall. It ought to give him enough of a lead in the meantime.

He palmed the antidote bottle to his face again, breathing in as much scent as he could stand, then recapped it and slipped it into the same pocket with the papers.

"Jackal?"

Akabane said nothing as he carefully stooped to pick up his hat, clenching his teeth against his wounded body's protests. He settled it onto his head and, elbow tightly against his side where Uta's man had nailed him with the shotgun spray, began limping away into the alley.

"Jackal! Hey! Where are you going?"

He tried to make himself walk faster but only succeeded in tripping on some loose stone. Cursing under his breath, he managed to stop himself from plowing into the ground, half-bouncing off a wall before he was able to right himself once more. He ignored the hands reaching out to stabilize him, but when they darted near his bleeding wound to inspect it he slapped them away.

Himiko's cry contained as much fury as it did frustration. _"Akabane!"_

"Stop following me!"

She latched onto his arm like a sharp burr. "You're not leaving me behind!"

He shook off her hold and let her have it. "This is my official warning to you, Himiko-san! Don't interfere from now on! You've done enough; I don't need you getting in my way! Do yourself a favor and go home where you belong!"

There was a brief, suspicious flash of something like what might be called hurt in her eyes, and Akabane had a split-second stab of inexplicable regret for putting it there, before it was swallowed up by the bright glint of her temper. She grabbed the lapels of his coat and slammed him into the wall as she spilled a verbal torrent upon his head.

"Don't you dare treat me like I'm a helpless child! We would've gotten fried back there if it wasn't for me, and this is how you repay me for getting back whatever was in those papers? You ungrateful jackass! What are you going to do when Brain Trust is breathing down your neck and you've got nothing to fight back with? You don't even have a friend in the world who'd stand by you, and the one person who is offering to help, you won't say a single word to because you're so wrapped up in your bloody fantasies that you'd rather risk turning yourself into zwieback out of some boneheaded notion of pride, instead of actually trusting and working with that person like partners are supposed to!"

Akabane was too stunned by the force of her vitriol to take much note of the insult she'd hurled at him. He frowned at her. "Zwieback?"

Himiko scowled harder and let go of his coat. "Toast done twice," she said curtly.

Somehow the macabre joke served to defuse the argument between them. They stared at each other for a few minutes without speaking, and then Akabane sagged against the wall. Evaporating adrenaline from the narrow escape, coupled with blood loss and the strain of verbal battle with his annoyingly persistent partner had left him drained.

To Himiko's credit she didn't rush forward to try and help him this time. Perhaps as thanks for that, he deigned to speak to her at last when he saw the concern darkening her expression.

"I'm not trying to treat you like a child," he sighed. "I'm trying to protect you."

She made a scoffing noise in the back of her throat as she rolled her eyes.

"Himiko-san. You don't understand - "

"I would if you'd tell me what's going on," she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I will, if you'll let me explain," Akabane said, sharper than he'd intended, before she could interrupt again. "You don't want to get involved in a fight that has nothing to do with you. You have no idea how dangerous the Babylonian factions can be when provoked."

She gave a most unladylike snort of laughter. "Excuse me? I was one of the keys they wanted to use to force open the sealed passage, and_ I_ don't know how dangerous those bastards are? You've got to do better than that if you want to frighten me, Jackal."

"This is serious!" She was taken aback when he nearly shouted at her, but he didn't relent. "You don't know these people like I do. They don't play games. They don't joust in good sport. They just kill. Anyone who gets in the way of their machinations tends to disappear, and rather messily at that. Aside from the Get Backers there's no one alive to speak of having crossed them. And those two remain marked men after the debacles they were responsible for. Even Makubex-kun continues to spend his days in hiding, despite being technically freed from Archive control. Forgiveness isn't in Brain Trust's vocabulary. Does the name Lukifer Pierre de Medici sound familiar? It ought to. The Specialist handed down to me orders to remove the problem he presented, and I wasn't the first to suggest that removal be permanent."

He paused, noting with relief that some of the starch had left her posture. She was listening now, her eyes pinched but riveted on him. Akabane went on. "Whatever they're up to, it's their chessboard and it's for me to match their plans. Do you remember what I told you, when we were in the shadow realms of Sodomunado? After we'd fought the false Queen's minions?"

Himiko frowned as she searched her memory. "You told me blood red wasn't my color."

"Precisely. The City likes interference even less than I do. And I'd hate to see a perfectly good agent end up as just another one of their stains."

She stepped forward, holding out her hand. "Then let me come with you. If the Trust is putting its full weight behind Kagami's attack you can't handle all of them at once. What if they stage another setup like the one with Uta? How can you fight them without your scalpels?"

"There exist other weapons at my disposal," Akabane said. "In the past, I might have relied too heavily on one defense alone. But it's a mistake for anyone - " he slanted a wary glance at her - "to assume that I have no recourse left to me. I possess resources they do not. I hold strategies they remain ignorant of." He stopped for breath, taking another dose of antidote perfume. "If you truly wish to aid me, Himiko-san...let me fight my own battles."

He let her digest that for a while as they stood, Himiko weighing her choices, Akabane recouping enough strength to move. Finally she spoke.

"At least come back to my place and rest before you have to leave."

Akabane looked up at her, saying nothing. He took one more breath of antidote and closed the bottle, putting it in his pocket.

Sudden tiredness made Himiko seem older than her tender years. Her shoulders drooped. "Jackal...Akabane...please...?"

He glanced back at the scene of their crime. The firefighters had gained a small measure of order over the blaze. Flames scored the nearby buildings but weren't leaping as high as they had several minutes ago. Akabane looked back to Himiko.

"All right."

A peculiar sadness crept into Himiko's eyes, but she gave him a small smile. He permitted her one of his own, and held still while she moved in and put her arms around him to help him hobble along.

The moment she was unguarded he acted. He snaked one hand down to the harness she wore around her hips, flicking his fingers over the bottles still in place, till he found the one he was sure would work. With the other hand he grabbed Himiko at the same time and pulled her close. Her open-mouthed gasp was all the opportunity Akabane needed to spill the sleep potion, which he'd uncapped, into her face. The fumes poured out in a greenish cloudburst and he pressed the bottle hard against her lower lip, forcing her to inhale a large amount that knocked her out before she even had time to realize what he was doing.

Akabane quickly stoppered the bottle with his thumb before any of the scent could waft over to him. The poisons were prepared with a special trigger that helped propel their spells outward, away from the user, but he turned his head and waved his arm to banish as much of the stuff as he could. When he was certain it was safe to do so he looked back at the bottle and the young woman slumped in his arm, her head lolling against his chest.

"Bloody hell," he muttered softly.

He gritted his teeth against the inevitable strain, stooped, and carefully lifted Himiko over his shoulder. It was harder walking, but he made do, bracing himself against the walls of buildings as he kept to the shadows wherever possible. Fate was kind there, shielding them from the view of any stray passerby, and Akabane kept going until he judged it reasonable enough to stop at the dead end of one street.

The vial of antidote perfume was nearly gone at this point. Akabane took a quick breath of it and pushed the capped bottle back into his pocket before attacking the thick plastic barring entry to the doorway before him. He managed to rip away part of it and carried Himiko inside a small building in the midst of extensive renovation.

There was a cluster of large metal trashcans in one corner. Akabane brought her to this spot and slowly let her slide down, off his shoulder. He took off his coat and removed what was left in its surviving pockets, including the bottles of perfume as well as the Babylon files, placing these items aside, and laid the coat over Himiko. Without pausing to rest – he knew if he did, he'd not have the strength to move again – he shuffled the bins around until they were arranged around her, hiding her from immediate view should any street ruffians wander close to this corridor and peep through the plastic-covered windows. Then he rummaged through one bin until he found a crinkled wad of paint-stained newspapers, which he spread over her body.

She stirred for a second, making Akabane freeze. He thought he'd dosed her with plenty of scent. But evidently it was just the normal embers of sleep, for she moaned quietly and then settled into silence.

"It's for your own good, my _kodomo-gunjin,"_ he told her as he laid out a section of paper over her head. He tore out another sheet and added it to the pile, ensuring her total concealment.

That done he pulled himself upright, thinking. He was breathing harder now, and pain was scraping its bite through his body worse than before. He dared not resort to any more antidote unless absolutely necessary. He still had more ground to cover, and though he could move faster now that he wasn't carrying extra baggage, he was feeling every bit of that strain from having done so.

Akabane looked around the room they were in. He spotted a painter's set of coveralls tossed aside by a pair of ladders near some scaffolding. It took some doing but he was able to struggle into them, covering up his ruined clothes and injuries the best he could – the outfit was tight in the shoulders and too short at the ankles. There wasn't anything he could do about his hat, but he wasn't about to leave it behind. Then he had an idea.

He found some cleaning rags and used these to pack against the shotgun wound, wrapping them in place with some of the painter's tape he found from a bucket of supplies at the scaffolding's base. Further searching of the bucket revealed some trash bags and a dingy white cap that looked as though it had come out the loser in a paintball war. He put his hat into one of the bags and tied it closed, then tried on the cap. Better.

In one of the coveralls' pockets, he was glad to discover a pair of gloves. He did a quick check of his improvised disguise. Overall he figured he shouldn't draw too much attention, as long as he didn't linger.

After putting on the gloves he picked up his bagged hat and the belongings that he'd taken from the coat; the latter were placed inside his pockets. Then, sparing a brief glance where Himiko slumbered, hidden amongst ordinary debris, he set out for his next destination.

Thoughts of the City forced him to move on when he would have hesitated, worn down by fatigue and wounds. Akabane stumbled through streets, clenching his teeth and holding his side in as much of a normal pose as he could, thankful that there weren't many people he encountered on his route. The few he saw seemed more engrossed in their own tasks to take much notice of a bedraggled painter with a bag of trash limping past. He continued down a side street until he came to a nondescript bar where local businessmen came to pass time after work.

At this hour the bar was virtually empty save for the employees and a couple of longtime bums with unofficial squatting rights. A few of them looked his way, but finding nothing of any real interest, they turned their attention back to whatever they had been doing before, drinking or cleaning tables. Akabane took off his cap and went to the front counter, waiting until he'd caught the eye of the bartender, a surly-looking man of average height with a small tattoo of an insect on the inside of his exposed forearm.

The bartender's eyes widened ever so slightly. But he said nothing until he came over, throwing a towel over his shoulder. "Help you, sir?" His voice, couched in a deferential tone, was at odds with his brusque expression.

"What's your stiffest rum?"

The bartender half-turned and looked at the array of beverages stocked on the wall behind him. On closer look the tattoo on his arm was that of a cicada in flight. The vivid green colors seemed to shimmer in the muted light, lending a lifelike aspect to the bug's form. "That would be the Portuguese Runner, sir. Not as strong as our usual lot, but the new stock's not arrived yet this week."

Akabane nodded as he eased onto a stool, hunching over the counter. "Bottle. One glass, rocks. Please."

The bartender nodded and went to fetch the order. He returned less than a minute later, bearing the bottle of rum, a glass with ice, and a cellphone tucked between a set of napkins. "Compliments of the house, sir."

"Thank you." Akabane waited until the man moved off to complete other chores, and then he uncorked the bottle of rum. He filled the glass nearly to the top and took a swift gulp of the dark amber fluid, wincing a little as the alcohol stung his cut lip. The rum was better than he'd hoped for. He downed another long swallow of the liquid gold, savoring its spiciness as distraction from the sting of burning needles in his side.

Still wearing the set of painter's gloves he set the glass down and nudged the bottle aside, reaching for the phone next. Akabane turned it over to its keypad and hit one number, then the send button. He lifted it to his ear and waited for the programmed sequence to finish dialing.

The tones sounded three times before someone picked up the line. There was no voice, but Akabane knew whoever had answered was listening. In a low voice he spoke two words into the receiver. "Parachute. Shark."

The silence lasted another moment. Then, a subtle click as the connection was severed. Akabane put the phone back down under the napkins and rummaged through his pocket for the antidote vial. He tried to draw out the last hints of the perfume to its limits, experiencing only minor relief as the scent began to fade. That, and the rum, provided welcome succor, and he leaned over the counter to rest, closing his eyes.

His wait wasn't long. The bartender came and neatly scooped up the phone in a pass he made with his towel over the bar counter. About ten minutes after that he returned again, sliding a slip of paper beneath Akabane's outstretched fingers. "Your tab's been settled, sir," he said as he turned to the refreshments on the wall and plucked out a few bottles.

Akabane forced his eyelids open; it felt like trying to move wet sand. He slowly sat up, holding in a hiss of pain when the movement aggravated his wound. Grasping the piece of paper, he turned it over in his palm.

_Pickup in behind for delivery._

He crunched the paper in his hand and slipped it into a pocket. Taking a few slow, deep breaths to steady himself, he finished off the last of the rum in his glass and put on his cap. Then he slid off the bar stool and carefully made his way toward the back of the room, where the storeroom and lavatories were. He checked that no one was watching and bypassed the entrances to the lavatories, heading into the storeroom and all the way to the exit.

He opened the door and stepped into the alleyway. A gleaming black Mercedes was parked there, the engine idling with a barely audible purr. Akabane staggered to the car, opened the rear door and did his best not to flop over the seats as he half-crawled, half-sank inside. He yanked the door shut and immediately the car pulled forward.

The driver didn't so much as glance in the rearview mirror when he spoke. "My lord is on-line, should you wish to speak with him."

He didn't really – there would be time enough later for talk, but Akabane knew better than to put off propriety in this case. He leaned over to one side as he reached for the cellphone sitting in the console between the front seats.

Himiko had been incorrect in her estimation that no other ally existed. There was one person who still called him a friend, one whose steadfast dedication arose from poignant, tragic bonds between them, though Akabane would have dismissed such reasoning as pointless sentimentality. He did not want to dredge up the past by disturbing its ghosts. Their history was complicated to say the least. As they said, however, necessity was the mother of invention...and innovation. He would need a professional for the mission he intended to undertake.

The screensaver morphed from a nightshade of twinkling fireflies into active light when he touched it. Akabane held it to one ear while he rolled over in the seat, trying to get comfortable. A deep voice, oiled by age and authority, captured his attention.

"So. The firebird has had its wings clipped at long last, and now seeks roost within my walls. Tell me, Kuroudo. What has finally possessed you to bow to the trappings of mortality and call for aid?"

Akabane shut his eyes briefly and sighed. "You will hear of it soon enough. I had no choice, else I would not have bothered your man at his business."

"Nonsense. Mako understands his duty to me, as I shall fulfill mine unto you. Our honor demands no less, my old friend."

Akabane grumbled quietly. "You may yet rue past associations when I tell you of the shrikes I must combat, Semimaru."

Mako was the bartender he'd spoken with. He was from the old guard, one of the cicada clan's members who'd served in Semimaru Kanade's regiment when both the elder and Akabane had been younger. All of the men the legendary sergeant had commanded remained loyal to him well past the rigors of war, and many of them still served in alternative capacities. Semimaru had placed longstanding instructions with a particular few of them, Mako being one such, that Akabane was currently taking full advantage of.

A calm hum of acknowledgment filled his ear. "I see. So the sky weeps red as the devils emerge from their den once more."

Like Akabane, Semimaru knew well of Babylon City and Brain Trust. His soldiers had reported on a certain diamond-dusting spy's actions, which ultimately led to the dissolution of a plot to resurrect an ancient war lord Semimaru had been bound to by generations of a karmic curse. Though the elder had cared little about the actual deed, he had been promised something of far greater value to him for participating in the plan, and when the resurrection failed, so too did Semimaru's dream. Thus he had never forgiven the lord of the looking glass for his handlers' interference. The shrike was a desert bird that, also like Akabane, was well-known for its bloody behavior. Its vernacular name was butcher-bird, since that's exactly what it did to its prey: the mauled carcasses of its victims were flung over the sides of its nest as a grotesque banner to its stronghold.

The elder hummed again, sounding slightly amused. "Well. We shall discuss our plans once you have settled in. I daresay they will find us welcoming soon enough." He chuckled then, a ripple of sinister delight that his protege' understood only too well. In his time Semimaru was famous as the Genocide Sergeant – none but a fool would underestimate his battle prowess.

Akabane let another, longer sigh escape his throat as he gazed out the window of the car and watched the world blow by. "Reconnaissance first. That, and recovery. They've already launched a preemptive strike."

There was a brief pause. "I see." Semimaru's voice was no longer lighthearted. "In that case you shall go to ground. Be at peace until soon we meet, Kuroudo. The road to an old friend's house is never long, and the directions are simple. Even a Jackal must have a safe haven."

Akabane ended the call without replying. He let the phone slip from his fingers onto the floor as he slumped over in the seat, closing his eyes and letting exhaustion take him into its dream-shroud, to a place where neither pain nor worry could touch him.

But as he drifted off one thought did nick him unexpectedly: surely Himiko was safe enough where he'd left her...?

* * *

TBC


End file.
